CHANGING MINDS IN MIDCRISIS – BRAZILIANS RETURN HOME

The 2007/2008 international financial crisis hit severely many countries, particularly those with more developed economies that had attracted large contingents of foreign workers. Many Brazilian workers had gone abroad in the last decades and many of them had to return to Brazil caught up by the unemployment caused by the downturn in economic activities triggered by the crisis. This crisis, in the short run, had minor effects in developing economies such as Brazil.
The text analyzes these returning migrants using data from the Brazilian 2010 Census, focusing on the differences between those that returned before and after the crisis. Demographic and socioeconomic variables, such as schooling and class of worker were used.
The data analysis supports the hypothesis that in a migration process, a scout goes first and the family follows after. With the crisis the scout had to return before the family movement could be accomplished. Alternative patterns are concomitant family migration and the independent migration of members of a family. Also, with the recent bettering of the economic situation in the Brazilian scenario, the low schooling workers are the ones that travel abroad seeking for better salaries and in a moment of crises have to return: post crisis return migrants are in general less educated than pre crisis migrants.