The Economic Re-integration of Returnees in Uruguay. A Qualitative - - PDF document

The Economic Re-integration of Returnees in Uruguay. A Qualitative Approach to the Reasons behind a Poor Labor Market Integration Introduction The most recent return wave of Uruguayan migrants began in 2008, with the onset of the economic recession affecting the U.S. and Spain. This flow has led the reversal of the historical negative net migration (Koolhaas and Nathan, 2013). However, for the last three years (2014-2016) this phenomenon has been declining and, for example, the Spanish statistics are capturing a recent recovery of Uruguayan origin immigration. The literature regarding what seems to be turning into a closed cycle of return migration agrees that there are at least three groups of Uruguayan returnees that have faced the greatest difficulties in the access to non-precarious employment. First, the people returning from Spain, followed by returnees from the United States; second, the male returnees; and third, the most educated returnees, and though they tend to vanish after a certain time of settlement they could last for at least three years in Uruguay (Koolhaas 2015). These difficulties concerning the access to the labor market were also observed in other Latin American countries such as Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina (Vela Peón & Cabezas 2015, Prieto & Koolhaas 2014, Gonzalez-Ferrer 2014, Schramm 2011, Nunan & Peixoto 2012, Masferrer et al. 2017). The reasons for this poor labor market integration of returnees have been widely studied

• mainly from a quantitative perspective- in other regions of the world but have been

quite overlooked for the Uruguayan cases. The evidence for other regions points to (i) the eventual negative selection affecting returnees (Wahba 2014; Wahba & Zenou 2009); (ii) the mismatch between the labor opportunities in the hosting and emigration countries and the inefficiency of the policies focused on promoting and supporting return migration (Parella et al. 2014; Cavalcanti & Parella 2012; Koser & Kuschminder 2015); (iii) as well as to the lack of preparation of the return (Cassarino 2014; Mercier et al. 2016). Within the Latin American region, the qualitative approach has also made meaningful contributions to the understanding of the poor economic reintegration of recent return migrants. Among them, we can highlight the importance of social ties´ weakness during the period of emigration (Herrera 2016; Schramm 2011; Maguid &

Cerrutti 2016; Cerrutti & Maguid 2017) and the mismatches between the skills acquired abroad and the skills valued in the country of return (Cobo et al. 2010; Cobo 2008). This research adopts a qualitative approach to explore the incidence of the factors above-mentioned in the economic re-integration of Uruguayan returnees. Based on the migrants’ perspective we discuss the role played by the following dimensions: 1) the labor trajectory and its interactions with the mobility trajectory, 2) the decision-making process, and the preparedness of return and 3) the skills and human capital acquired during the emigration. Assuming that the perceptions of returnees about their own experience are as valuable as the evidence provided by the statistical approach (Sayad 2010), this paper contributes with the description of the experiences of return and economic reintegration based on qualitative analysis of interviews conducted among Uruguayan returnees in late 2015. Our research has focused on those returnees who resided for at least two years in Spain

• r the United States, between 2008 and 2015, whose return was voluntary, and who are

at working ages. The selection of these two countries of origin is supported by the magnitude of the return flow registered from 2009 to 2012. Spanish economic crisis marked the beginning of a long process of economic recession, depreciation of human capital and exacerbation of the already ethnic segmented the market labor (Cebolla, Miyar and Muñoz-Comet 2015, Vidal-Cosío 2014). Although the intensity of the return of South Americans from the United States was lower, it was somehow more traumatic since the flow mobilized by the economic impact of the crisis was added to a significant increase in deportations. As a result, the number of annual returns that Uruguay received from 2008 grew to reach its maximum value in 2012, when it surpassed six thousand people (Koolhaas 2015a). The paper structures into four sections following this introduction. First, we present the literature review and the main concepts used in the paper. Second, we present the data and methods utilized in the analysis. Third, we discuss the main findings. Finally, we draw the main conclusions.

• 1. Background

Fortunately, the recent literature on return migration has left behind the linear association with the dichotomy of failure-success of migration experiences (Durand 2004). The nature of return involves many features. First, the return could be voluntary

• r forced. Second, it could be driven by economic hardship as much as by the

achievements, i.e., the fulfillment of saving goals, the completion of studies, or the acquisition of capital. Return migration could also respond to fears, such as the fear of deportation or the fear of losing a beloved family member overseas.Moreover, it could be the outcome of satisfaction with the achievement of non-material goals, like “living the adventure of migration” or “exploring the world.” The first of these explanations for the precarious reintegration of returnees relates to the educational selectivity of return (Wahba 2015). The evidence for Uruguay shows that returnees from the Spain are negatively selected, while returnees from the United States show a polarized selectivity pattern (Prieto et al., 2015). However, the mechanisms through which this bias could affect the returnee’s economic performance were not discussed so far. The labor trajectories of Uruguayan returnees before, during, and after migration have been disregarded and whether returnees have faced similar labor difficulties before leaving Uruguay or during migration, remains ignored. Nor it has been discussed whether migration depreciates or appreciates human capital, though evidence fro Senegal and Mexico pointed out that occupations below the qualification at the foreign destination, could negatively affect the subsequent economic reintegration back home (Mezger & Flahaux 2013, Cobo 2008). The second group of evidence here discussed concern the preparation of return (de Haas et al. 2014; González-Ferrer 2014). From this perspective, the non-prepared returns are more likely to trigger a difficult re-integration in home country (Cassarino 2014; Cassarino 2013). The return preparedness is also related to the ability to mobilize not

• nly material (economic capital) assets but also non-material assets, such as social

networks (Gandini et al. 2015). The weakening of social networks during emigration has found to negatively affect the future economic performance of returnees (Piracha 2009; Wahba & Zenou 2012; Glick, 1998). The lack of social networks may be especially relevant in contexts such as Uruguay, where social capital is an important asset for employment and social inclusion (Filgueira 2001). Precisely, this paper constitutes the first attempt to contrast the hypothesis arguing that the difficulties faced

by returnees running from recessive economies, as Spain and United States after 2008, are associated with the fewer opportunities they had to prepare their return and to mobilize material and non-material assets in advance to their arrival. The third group of explanations regarding the difficulties in the economic re-integration

• f returnees deals with the acquisition and transferability of human capital and skills,

which depends on the conditions that the receiving country provides to the returnee (Enchautegui 1993, Koser and Kuschminder 2015, Cobo 2008). The specialized literature has identified both, cases of return-friendly environments where there are facilities for investment, economic and political stability, accessibility of credit, among

• thers (Cobo et al. 2010, Parrado and Cerrutti 2006) and unfriendly contexts which does

not provide any support tools to returnees (Mezger and Flahaux 2013; Enchautegui 1993). Latin America, is somewhere in the middle of these two scenarios since all countries have at least some return migration policy but its impact has found of being very low (Cavalcanti & Parella 2013; Parella et al. 2015; Koser & Kuschminder 2015; Cerrutti & Maguid 2017). Besides, there are still critical challenges in the accreditation

• f skills acquired through non-formal learning instances and the validation of

qualifications obtained abroad (González-Ferrer 2014). The background of the Uruguayan case shows that transferability of educational credentials is also an arid path for returnees (Diconca et al., 2012). In addition to the explanations above-mentioned, we can name several others, but not all

• f them examined along this paper. However, is worth noting that the functioning of the

home-country and a return-friendly policy framework are among the other relevant elements pointed out by the literature. Home-country labor markets might be full of economic failures, and as we said the search for appropriate or desired jobs also has to deal with the translation of educational credentials and validation of informally acquired knowledge and experiences (Mezger Kveder& Flahaux 2013, Gonzalez-Ferrer 2014). Obstacles related to the recognition of academic diplomas and non-formal learning particularly affect returnees and are very critical issues when return involves negatively selected migrants –in respect to education- as in this case. Another rigidity of labor market that emphatically affects returnees —most of them in their forties and fifties is the preference for young workers.

• 2. Data and Methods

This paper enriches previous findings concerning the economic integration of returnees in Uruguay, which has been mostly based on a quantitative approach (Prieto 2016; Diconca et al. 2012; Koolhaas 2015; Prieto & Koolhaas 2014). Here we intend to analyze returnees´ perception about their process of reintegration to the Uruguayan labor market, as well as the interlinkages between self-perceived success or failure and the migratory experience. We conducted 23 in-depth interviews based on a semi-structured interview script between 2015 and 2016, but we based this analysis in the coding conducted over 16 of them using AtlasTi software. The topics included in the script included labor trajectories prior to emigration and during emigation and after return; the existence and frequency of the contact with relatives, friends and work colleagues during migration; the motivations for returning, the nature of return (voluntary, assisted or forced); its preparedness; the perceptions about the Uruguayans’ attitudes towards returnees or any explicit or implicit barriers to their reintegration. The order of questions was adapted to the interview´s context and the rapport with the interviewee, which enabled gathering the self-assessment and self- interpretation of ego’s labor trajectory and migration experience. We selected participants by the following criteria:

• Having returned later than 2007 after living in the United States or Spain for at

least three years

• Being older than 28 years old at the time of the interview
• Live in Montevideo (capital city) or within its metropolitan area
• Having completed the educational attainments defined as strata for the sample

(primary completed, secondary completed, university completed). These selection criteria were defined based on the average demographic profile of recent Uruguayan returnees as described by previous research (Koolhaas, 2015). The age-group targeted the population that has had the opportunity to acquire some work experience -that explains the lower limit- and are still in activity -which explains the upper limit.

To contact the interviewees, we have used two starting points, and from them, we launched a "snowball" strategy. The first node corresponds to our network and the second derived from contacts with the NGOs working with groups of returnees. Thus, we have tried to ensure a heterogeneity of the sample in the study.

• 3. Results

To begin with the analysis, we will start by describing the population interviewed according to the country of origin. Most of the respondents who returned from the United States have less educational attainment than respondents from Spain and have left Uruguay at the very beginning of the Uruguayan crisis (2001-2002), nevertheless not all of them explain their departure for economic reasons, pointing to the desire to experience the “adventure of traveling”

• instead. Moreover, they returned earlier than those from Spain, and on average are the
• ldest group. Within this group, there are no standard assessments of the current

employment status, but there are cases of absolute dissatisfaction or discontent. Regarding the labor trajectories, we found a wide diversity of cases, going from upward to downward mobility experiences and including cases of irregular labor occupational

• paths. Again, as for the preparedness of the return, we did not find a consolidated

pattern but a wide range of examples including experiences of well-prepared return and cases of pure improvisation. Returnees from Spain are on average more educated than respondents who returned from the United States. They also emigrated later, near 2004-2006, and have spent less time in Uruguay, having returned mainly after 2011. Within this group, there are cases

• f typical labor or economic migration, but also cases of migration associated with the

desire to pursue graduate education, parental home emancipation or the “experience of living abroad.” We found all kinds of assessments about the current economic status among returnees from Spain: positive, critical, and negative. Besides, there is a greater heterogeneity of labor trajectories than the one found among the returnees from the United States. Moreover, in these cases, the references to the crisis are permanent, pointing to it as an adverse context that though not necessarily defined the return decision, it certainly framed it.

Types of economic reintegration. A combination of self-reported employment status and satisfaction This section describes the kinds of “objective” employment and economic -in a more general scope- status described in words of the interviewees. We first describe such types of economic reintegration, which later merged with the assessments of such “objective” status at the time of the interview. The combination of self-described current economic reintegration status with the appraisal of the same has given birth to the typology here considered as our observation phenomena, which later will be analyzed through the three possible relationships between them and the labor trajectories, the accumulation of human capital, and the preparation of the return. The analysis of interviews allowed to identify four types of self-reported employment status -which constitutes the first part of what we have called topology of economic reintegration (combination of employment status and assessment) (Figure 1). Figure 1. Labor market status and assessment about socioeconomic reinsertion Source: own elaboration. The first includes those employed, which assess their current economic integration in various ways: (1) positive assessment or satisfaction, (2) satisfaction combined with relative discomfort concerning specific aspects of the labor conditions (critical), and (3) purely negative evaluations. A first observation is that the assessment of the current employment status is not necessarily linked to being employed or unemployed, but to the labor conditions and the relative evaluation of the current labor status within the framework of the self’s occupational trajectory. Within the group of returnees who are

employed and satisfied with their current employment status, we found descriptions pointing to decent labor conditions such as formality, satisfaction with remuneration, an acceptable number of working hours, satisfaction with the activity and healthy work

• environment. Among the employed returnees who have a more critical appraisal of their

economic reintegration, we also found workers with stable and formal employment, but with some concerns regarding matching between acquired education and the education required to pursue the tasks of the current job. Finally, those who hold a negative appraisal of the current employment status are dissatisfied with their remuneration, point to the lack of opportunities for promotion at its present work, the length of the time devoted to commuting, the multi-employment and the physical effort of their jobs - specially relevant among those working in construction and domestic services. These last cases are typically interviewees over 45 years old, thus, more susceptible to the physical effort of manual labor. The second type of economic reintegration reflects the transition between unemployment and employment, such as that of an interviewee who has just closed a company which was remotely build up in partnership with his brother while he was living abroad. This case does not represent a typical unemployed because he combines the work search (in Uruguay and the United States) with ongoing independent projects - despite those still do not report earnings-. In this case, the assessments are critical, although not entirely negative ("Transition" in Figure 1). The third type of reintegration is halfway between unemployment and inactivity (¨Combination 1¨ in Figure 1). These cases could also be called as hidden or discouraged unemployment because they wanted to work and were searching for a job upon their arrival in Uruguay, but today they have quit looking. The given reasons for quitting the job search refer to the incompatibility of employment with family responsibilities -child care or disabled relatives care, or aiming to continue with higher education. The fourth type of reintegration corresponds to the case where the inactivity overlaps with temporary informal jobs (¨Combination 2¨ in Figure 1). This practice is not negligible among retired persons in Uruguay, regardless of the migratory experience, and cannot be dissociated from the amount of the remuneration for sick or retirement

• pensions. This situation reflects the case of a male, who migrates to Spain with the

intention of saving money to have a better quality of life once retired, but does not

achieve this goal and ends up subsisting in Spain by a pension as a low-income community citizen and advanced age. Once he achieved the age of early retirement1 in Uruguay, he returns and settles outside of Montevideo to reduce living expenses. Since then, he has been combining formal inactivity with temporary and informal jobs such as sanitation and a stall in a street market. The assessment regarding satisfaction with the current employment status could be summarized in the typology depicted in Figure 2, where three types of appraisals are identified. Figure 2. Labor market status and self-assessment about current economic reinsertion

Note: We have not included all the interviewees in this figure but some for illustration purposes. Source: own elaboration.

The first type, which we will call positive, corresponds to cases where the returnee expresses some satisfaction with the employment status had at the time of the interview. Despite this usually, coincide with being employed we have found this type of appraisal among interviewees who combine retirement with some informal employment

• ccupation. The second category, named critical, reflects a less positive assessment,

where the interviewee admits aspects of his current economic position that do not fully satisfy him or her. Finally, the third type includes cases of pure negative appraisal of the

1 He is still working and within the working age group defined for this study.

current position. In this group, there is a wide variety of situations, including discouraged unemployed people or individuals in transition between employment and unemployment, but mainly we found testimonies of workers that are facing labor conditions that displease them. Next, we analyze these the types of assessments (or reintegration) by contrast with a) labor and migration trajectory, b) human capital and work experience gained in migration, and c) return preparation strategies. In this way, we contrast the hypothesis that the specialized literature has argued to understand the failure or success of the economic integration of returnees. One of the main contributions of this article is the recovery of some employment status that from the quantitative measurement would have been confounded with inactivity, such as the cases of hidden unemployment or the informal income strategies implemented by people that in other restrictive definitions would have been labeled as inactive (students, and women in charge care of dependents). Labor and migratory trajectory Based on an occupational mobility criterion, which accounts for paths towards improvement or impoverishment of labor conditions (job stability, formal employment, and wages), we identified seven labor trajectories among returnees. A few examples of the timelines designed to examine the occupational mobility based on the testimonies provided by the interviewees could be found at in the Annex.

Figure 3. Types of Labor Trajectories (LT) and Assessment of Current Employment Status

Negative Downward

• r irregular

LT (5) Upward- downward LT (3) Positive Upward LT (1) Stable LT (6) Critical Upward LT with interruptions (2) Downward LT (4) Stable LT Irregular LT (7) Source: own elaboration.

A first conclusion derived from the observation of figure 3 is the lack of alignment between the types of economic integration assessment and the labor trajectory.

Precisely, one of the findings of this chapter concerns the diversity of labor trajectories behind the possible appraisal of the current labor reintegration. Positive and negative assessment of economic reintegration is both found among upward, downward, irregular or stable labor trajectories. However, interviewees experiencing occupational mobility in upward direction praised migration experience as an opportunity to acquire human, social and financial capital; most of them have prepared the return, and point to the timing of return –during an expansive phase of Uruguayan economy– as a key determinant of their success. Conversely, those having a negative view of their current reintegration have followed a downward trajectory, whose turning point is not always associated with return and could have occurred even before

• emigration. This corresponds to examples depicted in Figures 4 and five at the Annex.

Among the returnees which express satisfaction with their current socioeconomic reintegration, the labor trajectories are ascending and stable, but there are also those cases that describe irregular labor paths, where it is not possible to identify a clear trend regarding labor mobility. The first type, characterized by stable or erratic mobility, reflects the work history of those who switched from an employer to another or even from one economic sector to another, but such interruptions of the labor history were not associated with the emigration nor the return. The second type describes an upward labor mobility that is reached during emigration or after return, and in which emigration is valued as the trigger of current success. Within the stories of upward mobility, we found interviewees who praise the emigration experience as a learning opportunity and a chance for accumulating social and financial capital and point to these assets as drivers of their current labor achievements. These cases where upward mobility was achieved after the return, are typically found among interviewee who says having prepared their reintegration (entrepreneurs) from abroad; learnt some of the skills that today are fundamental in their job; or been taking advantage of the skills acquired from the booming light construction sector in Spain and the United States which is now well praised in Uruguay too. These cases correspond to the examples shown in Figures 6 and 7 in Annex. Human capital and work experience gained during migration In addition to the factors that the literature considers critical in the acquisition of skills during emigration, which includes the type of employment in which the individual is

inserted, the duration of the stay in the host country, the social networks developed abroad, and the documentary situation, there is an extra element emerging from our analysis, which the previous education background of the migrant person as a setting to take profit or not of the opportunities found abroad. Among our interviewees, those who reached tertiary education did some formal training during migration -even among those who did not migrate aiming to study abroad- while none of those interviewed at lower educational levels took any course. The analysis of the testimony of the returnees of both countries confirms that the documentary situation is a critical determinant of the possibilities of training or access to quality jobs where new skills and opportunities can be acquired. Naturally, the emphasis on this aspect is greater among those residing in the United States. Despite formal courses, all interviewees acknowledge having acquired new skills and values during the migratory experience. These include the reference to a change of mentality regarding attitude towards work, greater responsibility as a worker, greater value for risk-taking, and greater opening or tolerance after the knowledge of other cultures. Although a significant number of interviewees came from the United States, we expected that having learned English would have been one of the most recurrently mentioned acquired skills. However, none of the returnees from that country allude to the language as an acquired asset. This result can be interpreted in the light of the characteristics of the social networks the developed abroad: the respondents interviewed developed social and work links mainly among other Latinos. Contrary to what is found in previous literature we did not identified a univocal determination of the duration abroad over the assets acquired. On the other hand, regardless of the type of assets acquired abroad, both formal or informal, cognitive or attitudinal, those who show disagreement with the socioeconomic reintegration upon return perceived a disability to capitalize the knowledge and skills achieved abroad. Conversely, those who somehow manage to apply those assets after their return, express conformity to their reinsertion. The influence of an increase in human capital due to emigration on the assessment of labor market insertion at return occurs through the possibility or not of capitalizing the assets acquired abroad. This is mediated by the other (employers) recognition of the training or aptitudes acquired during emigration.

Return preparedness In general terms, we observed that returns occurred since 2007 are more associated with incomplete migratory cycles, due to family reasons in interaction with economic factors, at the micro and macro level. Nevertheless, often the situation of having returned to Uruguay with financial capital accumulated during emigration and having made use of the facilities provided by Uruguayan return migration policies for importing goods acquired abroad (the most frequent, cars, household appliances, and tools). The qualitative evidence discussed here does not show a univocal relation between the mobilization of resources before the return and the conditions of economic reintegration in Uruguay, as predicted by Cassarino (2004). Finally, the evidence seems to contradict our initial hypothesis pointing returns from the United States should have been more prepared than those from Spain, by the different severity of the crisis. This result can be related to a more favorable economic insertion in Spain than in the United States, especially considering the language commonalities between Uruguay and Spain and the more immigration-friendly legislation enforced in this country. Another factor to explain why the return from Spain was more massive and, therefore, implied a more widespread reflexivity than the return from the United States, could be found precisely there: interviews describe their return from Spain as a collective process, which enabled exchanging information with other returnees, using web platforms, as well as standing on the contacts and knowledge acquired by the pioneer returnees.

• 4. Discussion

The cases analyzed here refer to voluntary returns, and include both types of returns, those defined because of the fulfillment of personal objectives, and those resulting from a feeling of truncated individual projects interrupted by the economic crisis or other external circumstances. Among those returning from Spain, the general context of crisis and the belief that the return to Uruguay was something promoted by the Uruguayan government -as much as the collective vision of the diaspora which poses return as a viable strategy- were key parts of the scenario. Among those returning from the United States the collective feeling of crisis nor the return pictured as a viable alternative to personal economic hardship were present, and the return was not pictured as the

• utcome of economic hardship but more as a movement triggered by unexpected events
• ccurred at the family level or by feelings of not being "adapted."

The evaluation of the current economic integration is diverse, and we did not find a linear correspondence between optimal working conditions (salary, educational adequacy, recognition of colleagues, opportunities for growth) and positive appraisal. The educational adequacy, the opportunities for growth at the current occupation, or the assessments of the present in respect to the immediate past -previous work in Uruguay

• r abroad– are the three most outstanding elements in favorable opinions with the

current insertion. On the other hand, the current satisfaction with employment status is mediated by the territories traveled and by the labor experiences had within those territories, as well as by the recognition that human capital assets accumulated during emigration received in Uruguayan labor market. A prototypical example is that of builders who feel that ¨Uruguay is changing¨ and now it praises better the type of construction (light) that was booming in the United States or Spain during the time they spent over there. For them, the return has paid well. Our results were not conclusive about the role of return preparedness on the characteristics and valuation of economic reintegration. Among the returnees from both countries in the study, we found actions aimed at mobilize savings, take advantage of the facilities provided by Uruguayan immigration legislation to import goods acquired abroad (automobiles, appliances, and tools), and efforts to start a remote job search among websites, friends, and family. In short, some of the actions of preparation of the return are present in the levels defined by Cassarino (2014) as "high" and, especially, "medium." Thus, we found certain resource mobilization before the return which is in tune with a strategy focused on dialogue with relatives based in the home country and with the financial capital accumulation -although they have made more investments in land purchases or housing than on enterprises or savings- but these preparation actions were not enough to guarantee a self-supported return. The role of the help received by local family members has been key in the establishment of most of the returnees and was pointed as such by them. This last result leads us to question the association between preparation and successful reintegration since we found cases holding a negative appraisal of the current integration which also indicates having developed actions aimed at organizing their

• return. Additionally, our analysis shows that the recent return, especially from Spain,

was a collective process, with double hermeneutics where information flowed, informed and convinced potential returnees who came in contact with this project and were conforming/participating in virtual spaces for the exchange of information. In line with the previous literature (Cobo 2008, Koser and Kuschminder, 2015), we found that the economic conditions of Uruguay were aligned to take advantage of the accumulation of skills of those Uruguayans working in the construction, gastronomic or touristic sectors. In these cases, the passage by the secondary sector in two highly segmented economies, such as the Spanish and the American, seems to have been used by the male immigrants who on their return became self-employed contractors or

• entrepreneurs. Among those reinserted in the construction sector, we perceive a

reflexivity that recognizes the complementarity between the pushing (busting construction in both Spain and US after 2008) and the pulling economy (booming construction at Uruguay since 2010). However, we also identify cases where assets accumulated abroad (contacts or skills) are not valued or profitable in Uruguay. However, even among these returnees, the valuation of the migratory experience is positive when we discussed the experience of "living abroad" as an asset that provided them with the values of tolerance, multiculturalism, and exposure to a new "work ethic" (responsibility, prolixity, punctuality). This brings us back to Levitt's (1998) idea of "social rewards" and adds to values as another of the assets of human capital accumulated during emigration. In conclusion, it is worth emphasizing the heuristic value of the longitudinal approach, not only to the study of labor trajectories but also to the interactions between these and

• ther aspects of the life course (family, health, previous migration, and access to

documentation), and the relevance of the context of origin of return as well. The first connotation leads us to ask future research questions about the interactions between the trajectory of work and the migratory trajectory that are mediated by the family path. What is more determinant for the subjects in their working life, the mobility or the milestones in the family path? How do family trajectories influence the evaluation of the work life and the trajectories followed? How does migration events affect family formation? These relationships are not univocal, and it is important to integrate a multidimensional and multidirectional analysis in future studies on the return in

• Uruguay. The second connotation on the weight of contexts of origin ratifies the
• pportunities of study that provided, in this case, the comparison of Spain and the

United States. Although both countries underwent critical economic crisis, it is in Spain that it takes more protagonist to indicate milestones of the life of the returnees

• interviewed. The crisis marked a before and after in this country, while among returnees

from the United States there are no direct references to it. Finally, the relationship between the successful reintegration of return migrants and the labor and investment opportunities offered by Uruguay is a topic out of this document. In that case, it would be opportune to compare the Uruguayan case with other reception contexts for migrants with such a profile from Spain and the United States and incorporate the perspective of employers to investigate the extent to which human capital acquired abroad is valued and rewarded by the national labor market. Acknowledgments The authors acknowledge the participants in this research who gave their time to share their experiences of emigration and return. We are also extremely grateful for the participation of Prof. Beatriz Diconca, who played a key role in the stages of instruments design and fieldwork, as well as to the valuable comments from Prof. Adela

• Pellegrino. This research was funded by the Scientific Research Council (CSIC) of the

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Annex

Figure 4. Negative assessment, current unstable job, downward mobility non-associated to

• return. Male returnee from the United States

Figure 5. Negative appraisal, a consistent trend of downward mobility starting before

• emigration. Female returnee from Spain
• Construcción (yeso),

dependiente (1987-89)

Gustavo (1961) 1986 UY-EU 1987 UY-EU

2007 EU-IT-ES-EU

• Taxi/dependiente
• Carpintería cuenta

propia c/ personal a cargo Limpieza

Hija 1 1989 EU 2012 EU-UY 1991 EU-UY 2000 UY-EU Hija 2 1998 UY

Estados Unidos New Jersey Uruguay Estados Unidos New Jersey  Pittsburgh Uruguay

• Changas de construcción/taxi
• Busca trabajo

Pensión por Enfermedad 2008-2015

Uruguay

Pareja (Uruguay)

Limpieza

• Zapatero /empresa propia
• Faltó capital para crecer
• Pintor (1986)

Cuidadora de niños

Naturalización núcleo familiar

Construcción

• Construcción
• Desempleo
• Curso de electricista

Irregularidad 1990 1985 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

“Faltó inglés para crecer”

Irregularidad

Construcción Enfermedad Construcción Limpieza

Figure 6. A positive appraisal that coincides with Upward mobility achieved after return by taking profit of skills and capital acquired abroad. Male returnee from the United States Figure 7. A positive appraisal that coincides with Upward mobility achieved after return by taking profit of skills and capital acquired abroad. Male returnee from Spain