ABSTRACT
In recent decades, the total volume of ethnic return migration has increased significantly. Although ethnic return migration is initiated by economic forces that are similar to other forms of labor migration, it is also structured by transnational ethnic ties between sending and receiving countries. Ultimately, ethnic return migration is a product of a complex dynamic between economics and ethnicity, with neither variable by itself sufficient to explain the causes of diasporic return. Most notable of these are the diasporic return of Russian Jews to Israel and a second wave of ethnic German return migration from Eastern Europe after the Cold War. The migration of ethnic Hungarian descendants from Romania to Hungary was a response to their comparatively dismal economic future in Romania, exacerbated by the perception of ethnic discrimination. Ethnic return migration policies in Europe are generally based on an ethnic protection or ethnic affinity rationale based on the historical connection of these countries to their diasporic peoples abroad.
