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This paper examines counterurban migration among young families with children in Sweden and the extent to which these moves reflect return migration, recognising the role of family members and family roots at the destination from a life course perspective. Drawing on register data for all young families with children leaving the Swedish metropolitan areas during the years 2003–2013, we analyse the pattern of counterurban moves and explore how the families’ socioeconomic characteristics, childhood origins, and links to family networks are associated with becoming a counterurban mover and choice of destination. The results show that four out of ten counterurban movers are former urban movers who choose to return to their home region. Among them, almost all have family at the destination, indicating that family ties are important for counterurban migration. In general, urban residents with a background outside metropolitan areas are much more likely to become counterurban movers. Families’ previous residential experiences during childhood, particularly in rural areas, are found to be associated with the residential environment they choose to resettle in when leaving the big city. Counterurban movers making a return move are similar to other counterurban movers in relation to employment status, but tend to be better off economically and move longer distances than other counterurban movers.

This paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing revitalisation of the counterurbanisation research within population geography by nuancing counterurban migration beyond the rural–urban dichotomy, including all moves downwards in the urban hierarchy. The focus is to explore counterurban migration patterns among families with children leaving Swedish metropolitan areas, and whether some groups of skilled professions are more likely to make a counterurban move than others. Using register data on all families moving out from metropolitan areas in Sweden during the period 2003–2013, we found a small but steady outflow of families, mainly to medium-sized or small towns. The highly educated are overrepresented among these families, thus providing potential for an inflow of competence to the receiving areas. Contrary to expected, the assumed flexibility in time and space among knowledge sector professionals does not seem to enable them more than others to pursue counterurban moves. Instead, public sector professionals characterise families making a counterurban move to all destination regions, while men with a profession within arts and crafts to a higher extent move with their family to more rural areas.