Migrants’ visits to their countries of origin have become an integral part of contemporary migration (Baldassar 2001, 2015). However, empirical findings on the scope of migrants’ visits are mixed and have little consistency regarding the structuring features of this transnational activity. While some studies suggest that only few migrants frequently visit their country of origin (O'Flaherty et al. 2007), other studies find it a rather widespread activity (Schunck 2011; Snel et al. 2006). Most of these studies find that human capital is positively related to migrants’ visits to the country of origin but show disparate results with respect to other factors, such as cultural integration or demographic variables (Fong et al. 2010; Schunck 2011; Waldinger 2008). These studies further show that the same factors can play out differently over time, across generations and different migrant populations (O'Flaherty et al. 2007; Tamaki 2011). However, research in this field has so far focused only on different migrant populations residing in the same host society. Thus, up to now none examined the behaviour of visiting migrants from the same country of origin residing in different host societies.

This study aims to bridge this gap by exploring and comparing the patterns and determinants that structure the visits of Peruvian migrants from Argentina, Chile, Italy, Spain and the United States to their country of origin. Together, these five countries host around three-quarters of the approximately three million Peruvians currently residing outside Peru (INEI et al. 2010). Their different geographic locations, migration regimes and histories can be assumed to impact the Peruvian migrants’ travel propensity. To examine cross-country differences and similarities, the following research questions were used: first, what are the patterns of Peruvian migrants’ visits in the five countries? Second, what features structure the frequency of their visits and how do these features play out in each of the countries? To answer these questions, data from a survey on the Peruvian community abroad, the Primera Encuesta Mundial a la Comunidad Peruana en el Exterior (Worldwide Survey on the Peruvian Community Abroad, WSPCA) from 2012 are analysed using multinomial regression analysis.