Return migration to continental Europe has attracted a good deal of attention. The main issues in the literature were discussed in chapter 2 and there is little point in repeating them in extenso. It is generally assumed that more than a quarter of the emigrants who left Europe between 1815 and 1914 returned to their native country. The rate of return to most continental European countries increased markedly some time about the turn of the century. In the years before the First World War returns to most countries seem to have been at least a third of outward movement. The highest rate of return was probably to Italy. A recent estimate suggests that 58% of Italian emigrants to the U.S.A. in the seven years after 1907–8 returned home before the First World War. Returns from South America were comparable.

The experience of returned migrants has been seen as an important factor in the decision to emigrate. In some cases, the material condition of those who had gone overseas and returned was so superior to the condition of those who had stayed behind, that it led to an immediate increase in emigration. But in the long run, the importance of returned migrants seems to have been more subtle. They gave potential emigrants a source of detailed information about, for example, employment opportunities in overseas countries, and the way was open for a considerable increase in the rate of emigration. As far as is known, potential emigrants relied far more for their information on personal contacts from returned migrants and from emigrant letters than on the advertisements of shipping companies and employment agencies.