Serb Returnees in Croatia – the Question of Return Sustainability 1 Milan Mesic´* and Dragan Bagic´** ABSTRACT The authors report on representative field research dealing with ethnic Serb returnees to Croatia. The total sample consisted of 1,500 randomly chosen persons from a population of 120,000 officially registered Serb returnees to Croatia. The main questionnaire was answered by 403 respondents. Draw- ing on references relating to the concept of sustainability, they further develop it through differentiation of seven sustainability aspects or dimen- sions: safety; socio-demographic structure of returnees; socio-economic conditions of return; refugee experiences; citizenship and minority rights; and subjective perceptions of sustainability. According to field findings, between 35 and 45 per cent of the registered returnees reside permanently at the addresses they reported upon return, and an additional 3,5 per cent moved to other locations within Croatia. At the same time, between 35 and 42 per cent actually reside in their refugee countries (mostly in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina). Some 6 per cent of returnees occasionally stay in Croatia and occasionally outside of it. The interviewers were unable to get any reliable information regarding permanent stay for 15 per cent of the people from the sample. Finally, 11 per cent of them have, in the meantime, passed away since registered return started in 1996. The research results confirm the prevailing impression that Serb returnees are predominantly old people. The average age of all interviewed family mem- bers is around 51. The findings and conceptualization suggest the need for a differentiated approach to a returnee body to better understand the complexity of a return. First, we have to distinguish among refugees potential returnees from non-returnees (political and economic ones). Returnees themselves can then be grouped into several types: I) unconditional permanent; II) * Full Professor, Department of Sociology, Faculty for Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia. ** Assistant, Department of Sociology, Faculty for Humanities and Social Sciences, Univer- sity of Zagreb, Croatia. Ó 2009 The Authors Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Journal Compilation Ó 2009 IOM 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK, International Migration Vol. 48 (2) 2010 and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. ISSN 0020-7985 doi:10.1111/j.1468-2435.2009.00536.x MIGRATION Edited by Elzbieta Gozdziak, Georgetown University