Southern Europe’s brain drain reversed in pandemic. Will it last?

When the first lockdown of the pandemic came, driving countries to hunker down and close their airspace, many Europeans were forced into a hard decision: stay put in their adopted nations, where they had jobs, or return to their homelands, where they had family.

For Flavia Brunetti, the choice was clear. She sped out of Tunisia on one of the last Alitalia flights still wearing a pajama top so she could reach her Aunt Letizia, now 95. It was inconceivable to let the person who raised her confront the logistics of a lockdown alone. “All of a sudden I realized that I could become cut off from my family,” says Ms. Brunetti. “I grabbed my laptop and that was it.”

She was not the only one racing to get home before the borders closed.