Hong Kong has a long history of migration. Its history blends in with the migrations that started from Guangdong province in the middle of the 19th century.

Whenever people migrate, they leave one location and arrive in another; some continue their migratory path to other destinations and others return to where they came from.

Canada received immigrants from Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland in waves, depending on the need for labor and governing legislation. The latest immigration wave started in the late 1980s when Canada, the largest destination for Hong Kong migrants, received more than 40,000 of its residents every year. That exodus lasted until 1996, when the number dropped.

Why do people return to their country of origin? To understand return migration, we need to understand who migrates and what drives them. One popular way of explaining migration is in terms of efforts to get away from inferior economic or political circumstances by going to a country with better opportunities; this is called push-pull theory. However, a good theory of migration should also explain why most people do not migrate and why some people return.

An alternative explanation uses social networks to explain migration. These networks can induce migration among relatives, friends or acquaintances who are in the process of migrating, and have these social connections in countries abroad.

In 1991 researchers at the University of Hong Kong used a survey to find out how people were adapting to the upcoming return to China.

Studies of immigrants in Canada showed that many did not get jobs that matched their skills. They simply lacked contacts in the main economy. Many still had work in Hong Kong, or their employers offered them new jobs. Many started to commute between Canada and Hong Kong while their families stayed in Canada. These far travelers were dubbed astronauts. Their families had relatives in Hong Kong and visited them frequently.

When looking at return migration, we should look not only at the original immigrants, but also at what their children decide to do later.

We can explain their return by looking at their transnational social networks. Several of the children of immigrants have maintained ties to relatives, or if they were in Hong Kong schools, to their classmates and friends. Through frequent visits they have maintained social networks and a Hong Kong identity, enabling them to return and get jobs.

Hong Kong has always been a city of migrants, and the current return migration is not new. What sets Hong Kong apart from most other jurisdictions is the rate of migration. A larger percentage of people have migrated from Hong Kong than any nation or region. Hong Kong Chinese have had the highest rate of return.

The author is professor at NHH Norwegian School of Economics. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

(China Daily 07/01/2012 page7)