ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the reasons for movements back to the village and the ways these are tied in with its economic life. The main reasons for return to the village are (1) retirement from lower and medium pay-scale government employment and (2) unemployment in cities. Multiple non-economic reasons for return include family-related motivations and a preference for village over urban life. Return migration is important in considering migration-development links because financial and social assets can flow back with return migrants. This is evident in the link between return migration and new infrastructure in the village. The case studies of investment in innovative village shops (such as the flour mill, the ladies shop and general stores) demonstrate that return migrants have capital, ideas and experiences, which they can use and translate upon return. The return migrants themselves report processes of self-transformation and changes in normative structures due to exposure to the outside world. The correlation between occurrence of return migration and development at source is however not given, but rather depends on investment choices of the returnees. Some pensioners with financial capital invest in the property to let and the setting-up of shops, while others simply relax and engage in non-productive, so-called timepass activities, living off their pensions or even seeing shopkeeping as a leisure activity. Return investments therefore have limitations in contributing to structural economic change.
