41% of people who worked abroad later worked in their country of birth among people with a recorded birth country and dated work history

Across the 1,477 people with a recorded birth country and a dated work history in our research, 991 (67%) have worked outside their country of birth and 486 (33%) have worked only in their country of birth. We estimate that 410 of the 991 people who worked abroad (41%, or 28% of all 1,477 placed people) later held a dated work position in their country of birth. Those 410 returners include 264 (64% of returners, or 27% of everyone who worked abroad) who work in their country of birth now and 146 (36% of returners, or 15% of everyone who worked abroad) who worked in their country of birth after time abroad and later moved again or retired.

A person's first post-abroad work position in their birth country began a median of 5 years after their earliest foreign work role (middle half 3 to 10 years), and 230 of the 410 returners (56%) returned within five calendar years. Most returners (250, or 61%) worked in their birth country before going abroad and later returned; the remaining 160 (39%) held their first home-country work position only after working abroad. 215 of the 410 returners (52%) started another work position abroad in a later year, and 195 (48%) recorded all subsequent work positions in their birth country. Before their first return home, 233 of the 410 returners (57%) had worked in the United States, followed by the United Kingdom (67, or 16%), Canada (27, or 7%) and Germany (26, or 6%); by foreign employer before first return, Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 32 future returners, followed by Stanford University (29) and Carnegie Mellon University and University of California, Berkeley (19 each).

Key findings

• 410 of 991 people who worked abroad (41%) later worked in their country of birth. That group comprises 264 people (27% of everyone who worked abroad) who work in their birth country now and 146 (15%) who worked there in an earlier post-abroad role.
• Among the 17 birth countries with at least 15 people who worked abroad, the United States leads in return rate at 69% (64 of 93). France follows at 68% (19 of 28), and Russia has the lowest return share at 5% (1 of 22), next to Greece at 13% (2 of 15).
• Four of the 17 major birth countries have more former returners than current home-country workers. Those countries are China, the United Kingdom, Greece and Russia; across the other 13 major birth countries, 11 have more returners working at home now than earlier and Australia and India split evenly.
• By decade of earliest foreign work, the return share was 27% in the 1960s, peaked at 50% in the 1970s and was 19% in the 2020s so far. Within a fixed 5-year window after first working abroad, 25% returned from the 2000s and 2010s cohorts, compared with 14% in the 1960s and 19% in the 2020s.
• Universities account for 71% of first return positions (290 of 410), and their share shifted from 74% in the 1970s to 49% in the 2020s. Over the same span, the combined share of companies and institutes and labs in first return roles changed from 26% (6 of 23) in the 1970s to 51% (25 of 49) in the 2020s.

Return migration by birth country

Across all 92 birth countries with at least one person who worked abroad, 17 have at least 15 people with foreign work experience. In eight of those 17 birth countries, at least half of the people who worked abroad later held a work position at home: the United States (69%, or 64 of 93), France (68%, or 19 of 28), Switzerland (67%, or 10 of 15), Germany (66%, or 79 of 119), Belgium (60%, or 9 of 15), Italy (59%, or 24 of 41), Israel (57%, or 25 of 44) and China (50%, or 20 of 40). In the remaining nine major birth countries, fewer than half returned: Poland (45%, or 9 of 20), Spain (41%, or 13 of 32), Austria (39%, or 7 of 18), the United Kingdom (36%, or 27 of 75), Canada (32%, or 12 of 38), Australia (32%, or 6 of 19), India (23%, or 16 of 70), Greece (13%, or 2 of 15) and Russia (5%, or 1 of 22).

Stacked horizontal bar chart of return migration shares across 17 birth countries with at least 15 people who worked abroad, split into people who work in their birth country now and people who worked there in an earlier post-abroad role.

Source: People of Superintelligence career records from biographies and OpenAlex, as of 2026-10-22. Birth country comes from sourced biographical records. The table lists all 39 birth countries with at least 5 people who worked abroad.

Data table

Birth country	Placed people	Worked abroad	Returned to birth country	Return share	Work in birth country now	Worked in birth country earlier	Median years to return
Japan	27	13	10	77%	4 (31%)	6 (46%)	14.5
Finland	17	13	9	69%	7 (54%)	2 (15%)	3
United States	384	93	64	69%	42 (45%)	22 (24%)	4
France	49	28	19	68%	12 (43%)	7 (25%)	4
Switzerland	20	15	10	67%	9 (60%)	1 (7%)	4.5
Germany	146	119	79	66%	62 (52%)	17 (14%)	4
Belgium	17	15	9	60%	6 (40%)	3 (20%)	5
Bulgaria	5	5	3	60%	2 (40%)	1 (20%)	20
Egypt	5	5	3	60%	1 (20%)	2 (40%)	6
Slovenia	8	5	3	60%	3 (60%)	0 (0%)	2
Italy	55	41	24	59%	15 (37%)	9 (22%)	5.5
Israel	47	44	25	57%	18 (41%)	7 (16%)	3
China	53	40	20	50%	9 (23%)	11 (28%)	11.5
Sweden	12	10	5	50%	1 (10%)	4 (40%)	4
Poland	22	20	9	45%	6 (30%)	3 (15%)	12
Spain	42	32	13	41%	11 (34%)	2 (6%)	3
Portugal	6	5	2	40%	1 (20%)	1 (20%)	5.5
Austria	20	18	7	39%	6 (33%)	1 (6%)	5
United Kingdom	103	75	27	36%	11 (15%)	16 (21%)	4
Czechia	13	9	3	33%	2 (22%)	1 (11%)	7
Canada	43	38	12	32%	9 (24%)	3 (8%)	5
Australia	26	19	6	32%	3 (16%)	3 (16%)	5
Hungary	11	10	3	30%	1 (10%)	2 (20%)	7
India	75	70	16	23%	8 (11%)	8 (11%)	20
Taiwan	11	10	2	20%	0 (0%)	2 (20%)	13
Iran	12	11	2	18%	1 (9%)	1 (9%)	3
Nigeria	7	7	1	14%	1 (14%)	0 (0%)	5
Serbia	7	7	1	14%	0 (0%)	1 (14%)	7
Türkiye	7	7	1	14%	1 (14%)	0 (0%)	6
Greece	15	15	2	13%	0 (0%)	2 (13%)	13.5
Argentina	10	9	1	11%	0 (0%)	1 (11%)	19
Brazil	12	12	1	8%	1 (8%)	0 (0%)	2
Russia	27	22	1	5%	0 (0%)	1 (5%)	18
Romania	13	12	0	0%	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	—
Ukraine	11	11	0	0%	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	—
South Africa	10	10	0	0%	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	—
Algeria	7	7	0	0%	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	—
Ireland	6	5	0	0%	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	—
Slovakia	5	5	0	0%	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	—

By headcount of returners, Germany leads with 79 people, including Alex Waibel, Andreas Geiger, Andreas Kaplan and Andreas Maier (62 working there now and 17 earlier), followed by the United States with 64, including Aaron D. Wyner, Alán Aspuru-Guzik, Alison Gopnik and Allen Tannenbaum (42 now and 22 earlier). In four of the 17 major birth countries, former returners outnumber current home-country workers: in China, 11 of 20 returners (55%) worked there in an earlier post-abroad role (including Gang Hua, Hui Xiong, Kai Li and Qiang Yang) and 9 (45%) work there now, in the United Kingdom, 16 of 27 returners (59%) worked there in an earlier post-abroad role (including Alan K. Mackworth, Alan W. Black, Andrew Norton and David C. Parkes) and 11 (41%) work there now, in Greece, 2 of 2 returners (100%) worked there in an earlier post-abroad role (including George Stephanopoulos and Maria Petrou) and 0 (0%) work there now and in Russia, 1 of 1 returner (100%) worked there in an earlier post-abroad role (including Alexander Gorban) and 0 (0%) work there now. Median time from a person's earliest foreign work role to their first post-abroad home position ranges across the 17 major birth countries from 3 years in Israel and Spain to 20 years in India.

Return migration by decade of working abroad

Grouping the 991 people with foreign work experience by the decade of their earliest dated work role abroad shows how cumulative return rates and early returns compare across cohorts. For the 7 decades with at least 20 people first working abroad, the cumulative return share was 27% (13 of 49) in the 1960s, peaked at 50% (45 of 90) in the 1970s and was 19% (10 of 54) in the 2020s so far.

Stacked horizontal bar chart across 7 decades of earliest work abroad (1960s to 2020s), showing the share who returned within 5 years and after 6 or more years.

Source: People of Superintelligence career records from biographies and OpenAlex, as of 2026-10-22. Return window measures calendar years from a person's earliest foreign work position to their earliest post-abroad work position in their birth country.

Data table

First-abroad decade	First worked abroad	Later returned home	Return share	Returned within 5 years	Returned after 6+ years	Work in birth country now	Median years to return
1960s	49	13	27%	7 (14%)	6 (12%)	3 (6%)	4
1970s	90	45	50%	21 (23%)	24 (27%)	20 (22%)	7
1980s	179	84	47%	43 (24%)	41 (23%)	48 (27%)	5
1990s	243	113	47%	59 (24%)	54 (22%)	82 (34%)	5
2000s	220	98	45%	54 (25%)	44 (20%)	77 (35%)	5
2010s	133	43	32%	33 (25%)	10 (8%)	24 (18%)	4
2020s	54	10	19%	10 (19%)	0 (0%)	10 (19%)	2.5

The share returning within five years ran from 14% (7 of 49) in the 1960s to 25% in the 2000s (54 of 220) and 2010s (33 of 133), and stands at 19% (10 of 54) for the 2020s cohort. Long-horizon returns after 6 or more years accounted for 27% (24 of 90) of the 1970s cohort, compared with 8% (10 of 133) in the 2010s and 0% (0 of 54) in the 2020s so far.

Return migration by sector and organization

Return rates also vary by the sector of a person's earliest foreign work role. People whose first work position abroad was at an institute or lab returned to their birth country at the highest rate (50%, or 53 of 107, after a median of 4 years), followed by those whose first foreign work role was at a university (42%, or 309 of 731, median 5 years), compared with 31% (48 of 153, median 5.5 years) for people whose first foreign work position was at a company.

100% stacked horizontal bar chart showing the sector breakdown of first post-abroad work roles in a person's birth country across 6 return decades (1970s to 2020s), split into universities, companies, and institutes and labs.

Source: People of Superintelligence career records from biographies and OpenAlex, as of 2026-10-22. Sector classifies the organization of each person's earliest post-abroad work position in their birth country.

Data table

Return decade	People returning	Universities	Companies	Institutes and labs	Companies + institutes/labs	Median years after first abroad
1970s	23	17 (74%)	1 (4%)	5 (22%)	6 (26%)	3
1980s	47	39 (83%)	1 (2%)	7 (15%)	8 (17%)	3
1990s	86	68 (79%)	9 (10%)	9 (10%)	18 (21%)	4
2000s	109	76 (70%)	7 (6%)	26 (24%)	33 (30%)	5
2010s	88	59 (67%)	12 (14%)	17 (19%)	29 (33%)	6
2020s	49	24 (49%)	9 (18%)	16 (33%)	25 (51%)	18
All returners	410	290 (71%)	40 (10%)	80 (20%)	120 (29%)	5

When people return to work in their country of birth, universities are the most common first destination at 71% (290 of 410 returners), followed by institutes and labs at 20% (80) and companies at 10% (40). Counting all post-abroad work positions in a person's birth country across their career, 341 of the 410 returners (83%) worked at a home-country university, 166 (40%) at a home-country institute or lab, and 71 (17%) at a home-country company; 254 returners (62%) entered the same sector on their first return role as on their first work role abroad, and 156 (38%) changed sectors.

Across the 6 return decades with at least 10 returners (1970s to 2020s), total first returns peaked in the 2000s at 109 people. The university share of first return roles moved from 74% (17 of 23) in the 1970s to 49% (24 of 49) in the 2020s, and the combined share of companies and institutes and labs moved from 26% (6 of 23) in the 1970s to 51% (25 of 49) in the 2020s (33% at institutes and labs and 18% at companies in the 2020s). Across all post-abroad home-country roles, Max Planck Society leads with 14 returning people, including Bernhard Schölkopf, Bernt Schiele, Bjorn Stevens and Christof Paar, followed by Technion with 13 and CNRS with 12. Measured by a person's first post-abroad employer in their birth country, Technion leads with 9 returners, followed by Max Planck Society and Tsinghua University with 7 each.