Mikeliv88:

I don't really see your point. One of my best friends did his PhD after roughly 10years out in Computational Fluid Simulation (or something similar weird ;-) and he's a professor now. I was out of my (social science) subject for many years, and I am pretty confident (I know, don't praise the day before the night). Further, I agree with TreeOfLife; you're not the only returner in the world.

I would consider these few thoughts:
1) Check with the programme itself and go through the class descriptions. Do you think you can take on it?
2) You probably didn't sleep the last 4 years, but gained knowledge in other areas, wheresoever. Include that, don't make it a waste. It's an asset.
3) Being out connects you to the real world, meaning: your motivation is different. You are older, you know what working means, you know how important it is to bring money home and to stay focused. Another asset, and useful, too.

Best, Sebastian.

Huy: Finding a good topic is nothing that happens over night (well, usually not!).
I recommend:
- Don't rush. Plan at least 3 months for finding a topic!
- Do excessive (!) research on all ideas that you come up with. Make notes of every weird idea in your head.
- Focus in particular on latest articles (1-2 years), and understand the idea and the outlook! The outlook gives you new ideas, usually.
- Don't intermix researching for articles, reading them and taking notes - those are three separate tasks!
- Read, read, read. :-)
- And read this famous article: http://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/abstract/S1097-2765%2809%2900641-8

Best, Sebastian.

Testing the strength of a popular hypothesis is not a bad idea.
Maybe you can try adding some of these thoughts:
- Testing a few more methods / maybe with more data needed and check some interesting cross correlations
- Get in touch with more experts in your field - the worst they can do is not reply!
- Check the outlooks on latest (!) research on your hypothesis. There usually is something that is not yet discovered or worth mentioning it.
- I don't know how it is in Geography, but eventually you just start with your idea, make a few articles out of it and see where you end up!
- Cross-cultural validation is - as far as I can see - pretty famous right now, in many research areas of social sciences. Maybe there's more to your idea than just applying an old hypothesis to a new region? Cross-cultural validation with other tested regions?