Return Migration and Occupational Choice: Evidence from Albania

This paper explores the impact of return migration on the Albanian economy by analyzing the occupational choice of return migrants while explicitly differentiating between self-employment as either own account work or entrepreneurship. We find that the own account workers have characteristics closer to non-participants in the labor market (i.e., lower education levels), while entrepreneurship is positively related to schooling, foreign language proficiency, and savings accumulated abroad. Furthermore, compared to having not migrated, return migrants are significantly more likely to be entrepreneurs, showing the positive impact of migration on job-creating activities in Albania.