About 20,000 people from the United Kingdom emigrate to Australia each year. Of these, a significant number return to the United Kingdom, and some return again to Australia. Studies of such patterns of migration and return (and return again) were quite common a few decades ago, but are now rare. This paper makes use of a contemporary data source – an Internet‑mediated discussion forum – to explore the experiences of modern ‘ping‑pong poms’. A picture emerges of these migrants as exercising emotional reflexivity in dealing with the pull of family left behind,‘homesickness’, the lack of a sense of belonging and their often‑disappointed dreams of a ‘better life’. By understanding the importance of emotions in people’s decisions about return migration, policy can better attend to the realities of more mobile lives.
Holmes et al. (Sun,) studied this question.