Return migrant entrepreneurs in India: Case studies and policy recommendations

For centuries India has been a destination and a source of migrants. Although a significant proportion of skilled workers tend to migrate to countries such as Australia, UK and the US, the less skilled migrant workers are employed in the Middle East as well as South East Asian countries. This study focuses on those temporary migrants who return to India once they have completed their short term employment contracts. They invest their skills and in some cases their savings in business ventures with success. Such return migrants can loosely be classified as forced returnees, wilful returnees, financially well positioned returnees who are rich in skills but short on finances. The case studies presented in this report are drawn from this heterogeneous group and reveal their success in entrepreneurship after their return to India.


The study is one of the research outputs from the ILO-EU Asian Programme on the Governance of Migration.