Introduction

Post-accession migration from Poland has gained prominence in the media and in research during recent years. Researchers have pointed to the strong involvement of young and highly educated migrants in this most recent wave of migration from Poland (Kaczmarczyk & Okólski 2008). While we already know a lot about the labour market outcomes of Poles in the United Kingdom (see, e.g., Drinkwater, Eade & Garapich 2006), post-accession return migration and labour market outcomes of returnees remain blind spots. This is even more true with regard to educational migration and returns from studies abroad. According to UNESCO (2008: table 10), 30,808 Polish students are studying abroad. Forty-three per cent of them chose Germany as their study abroad destination. Throughout the 1990s, educational migration from Poland to Germany saw a steady increase. The numbers of Polish students peaked at 12,301 in winter term 2005-2006 (StBA 2008). In quantitative terms, Polish students still represent the second most important group of international students in Germany. Studying the outcomes of German-Polish educational migration could thus provide insight into a segment of high-skilled migration that has been largely ignored in migration studies, despite indications that it is the young and highly qualified who characterise Poland's migration.

To date, little precise data is available on retention or return of former educational migrants. We know that annually about 1,400 Polish students graduate from German universities (StBA 2008: 223). A survey of 177 Polish graduates from the European University Viadrina – the main target university in terms of Polish enrolments in Germany (DAAD/HIS 2008) – reveals that only 20 per cent lived in Germany upon graduation (Meier 2002, cited in Matejskova, Bergstrom & Szara 2005: 74). Polish government data (KPRM 2002) shows that 90 per cent of the Polish Viadrina graduates take up their first post-graduation employment in Poland. Thus, the limited data available suggests that the overall majority returns. Hence, some might claim that in this segment of highly skilled migration, Poland observes a brain gain. However, this conclusion would be rash, since little research exists on the labour market outcomes of returnee graduates. This chapter addresses this research lacuna.