ABSTRACT
Australia is one of the world’s great immigration nations, with 24 per cent of its 21 million population (2006 estimate) born in a foreign country, and with a further 26 per cent who are Australia-born but have at least one parent who was born overseas. Yet it is less well known that Australia is a signicant country of emigration with a diaspora of around 1 million expatriates (Hugo 2006a). Moreover, because Australia is one of the very few nations which collects comprehensive data on people who leave the country as well as for those who move to the nation, it is possible to obtain a comprehensive picture of both emigrants and immigrants. These data show a high and increasing loss of young, skilled Australians which very much reects Australia’s peripheral position in the global economy as well as the strengthening of globalization processes and internationalization of labour markets. Indeed the exodus has raised some concerns in Australia that the loss of skilled human capital is causing a brain drain (Wood 2004). This has been countered by those who point out that immigration levels in all major skill areas are well above emigration levels (Birrell et al. 2001). However it is less well known that this brain drain is being offset by considerable return migration among the Australian expatriate population and it is this return migration which is examined in this chapter.
