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This article discusses how global crises affect the return of international migrants. It develops a theoretical model and tests this contribution empirically taking Covid-19 as an instance of a global crisis. Existing studies have treated migration and mobility mostly as phenomena of virus dispersion. The reverse impact of Covid-19 on migration has attracted less attention. This article draws on a unique probability-sample of German emigrants to investigate actual return migration during the first year of Covid19. These panel survey data were collected immediately before the pandemic onset in winter 2019 and one year later in winter 2020. We enhance these data with publicly available country-level data on Covid-19 incidence, excess mortality and Covid-19- induced democratic violations. Our findings from multi-level regression models suggest a moderate impact of country-specific pandemic indicators on return migration behaviour. Moreover, democratic violations in countries of residence and aggravating economic situations of individual households increase the likelihood of return. We conclude with a discussion of what can be learnt from the case of German return migrants about crisis migration in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Millions of Ukrainians have been displaced by the Russian war on Ukraine, with over one million alone coming to Germany since the beginning of the war. Data from the second survey wave of the IAB-BiB/FReDA-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Ukrainian Refugees in Germany study show that as of the beginning of 2023, an increasing share of Ukrainian refugees plan on staying in Germany for the longer term. Around three quarters have found private accommodation and a similarly large share have already attended or are currently attending German language courses. Eighteen percent of the 18 to 64 year olds are employed; of the rest, over two thirds intend to start working immediately or within the next year. While almost all refugee children and adolescents of school age are attending a general or vocational school in Germany, only six out of ten children between three and six years old are attending daycare. To increase refugees' social participation and, in light of the high share of mothers among them, childcare options should be improved. This would facilitate participation in integration and language courses as well as the path to employment. In addition, it is crucial to quickly decide on the extension of Ukrainian refugees' right of residence, which is currently limited until March 2024, thus making their legal status more certain and planning possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how mail-based online panel recruitment can be facilitated through incentives. The analysis relies on two incentive experiments and their effects on panel recruitment, and the intermediate participation in the recruitment survey. The experiments were implemented in the context of the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study and encompass two samples of randomly sampled persons. Tested incentives include a conditional lottery, conditional monetary incentives, and the combination of unconditional money-in-hand with conditional monetary incentives. For an encompassing evaluation of the link between incentives and panel recruitment, the article further assesses the incentives' implications for demographic composition and panel recruitment unit costs. Multivariate analysis indicates that low combined incentives (€5/€5) or, where unconditional disbursement is unfeasible, high conditional incentives (€20) are most effective in enhancing panel participation. In terms of demographic bias, low combined incentives (€5/€5) and €10 conditional incentives are the favored options. The budget options from the perspective of panel recruitment include the lottery and the €10 conditional incentive which break-even at net sample sizes of 1000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]