Understanding Return: Key Findings, Gaps, and Future Research

The return of refugees to their home countries is often regarded as a desirable outcome in displacement contexts, enabling individuals to rebuild their lives in familiar environments. Nevertheless, returning home remains challenging and infrequent in many contexts. This note reviews the academic literature to identify key factors influencing refugees’ decisions to return, highlights gaps in current research, and suggests directions for future study. The evidence underscores that safety and security are preconditions for return. Beyond security, factors such as economic stability, property rights, access to services, and psychological and social connections to home communities are critical. The research also identifies challenges after return, including tensions between returnees and those who stayed behind, as well as difficulties with reintegration. Future research should investigate return dynamics from high-income countries, enhance conceptual frameworks for understanding the return processes, and differentiate return experiences for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees. Additional focus is needed on climate-induced displacement, reintegration challenges, and the impact of information gaps on decision-making. Generating better data, including panel datasets, is essential for enabling more rigorous analyses of return dynamics. Addressing these research gaps could contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the return processes and inform policies that facilitate safe and voluntary returns.