Frequent Visits to the Country of Origin for the Europeans

Number of visits to the country of origin, by origin (Source: Migration-Mobility Survey 2016)

Contacts with the country of origin play an important role in the life of migrants. Therefore, most of them (92%) visited their country of origin over the past year.

The geographical distance between the country of origin and Switzerland has of course a major impact on the frequency of visits. On the one hand, citizens form neighboring countries such as Germany, France, Austria, or Italy, visit their country of origin very often (over 62% return at least three times a year, thereof around 25% even at least once a month). On the other hand, a large majority of the immigrants originating from another continent visit their home country only once or twice a year (50% or more) or never (45% for West Africans and 31% for South Americans).

Even though only few gender differences are found, men seem to return to their country of origin slightly more often than women.