No abstract

European youth mobility seems to be fostering Europe's unequal pace of integration, which sees certain countries benefit at the expense of others (Ohmacht et al., 2009;van Mol & Timmerman, 2014). Using a comparative approach, the paper aims to relate a macro-level country-typology focussing on human capital with individual mobility-motivations on the micro-level. Our methodological approach is based on a secondary macro-data analysis and analyses of mobility-motivations of young people (micro-data) deriving from qualitative (N=152) and quantitative data (N=5,499) collected in six European countries. In order to examine correspondence between macro-conditions and micro-aspects, we relate information on mobilitymotivations to the country-typology by allocating mobile youth to the respective types of their home country. The results show that the country-types compose different opportunity structures, which are reflected in individual motivations. Accordingly, different country-types can be seen as an example of the heterogeneity and inequality of European social and territorial mobility frames.

The geographical mobility of young Europeans takes place within institutional realms that frame young people´s educational and vocational situations. These institutional framings provide unequal preconditions for going abroad. Starting from an action-oriented theoretical approach, the aim of this work was to explore young people´s international moves within different mobility settings. Based on 52 qualitative interviews with mobile youth from three mobility fields in three countries (students from Luxembourg, employees in Norway and Luxembourg and apprentices from Germany), the dynamic concept of context-sensitive mobility-related modes of action (MRMA) was developed. The applied analytic framework reflects the fact that individual perceptions and actions relating to going abroad differ greatly according to the young people’s specific current educational/vocational situations. Moreover, the comparative approach sheds light on different dimensions of inequality caused by these framing systems.

Even though intra-European youth mobility is valued as a boost for personal and professional development, few opt for it. While obstacles preventing young people to become mobile have been discussed broadly, less attention has been paid to the obstacles for the youth who are already on the move. We offer this rare perspective in regard to intra-European mobility. We focus on youth in four types: pupil mobility, vocational (education and training) mobility, higher education student (degree and credit) mobility and employment mobility, in six countries: Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Norway, Romania and Spain. Our analysis, based on qualitative (140 interviews) and quantitative (N=1.682) data, reveals that the perceived obstacles vary between the mobility types, with the greatest divergence between the educational and work-related mobilities. Obstacles such as lack of financial resources and guidance, the perceived incompatibility of institutional regulations within Europe, are shared by all mobile youth.

The high demands that today's young school leavers face in Germany and the increasing recognition of an ageing population with skills and experience to share has led to a rapid increase in mentoring projects where older people work with young school leavers to help them find their way into employment.While this field is still in its infancy, mentoring flourishes in Germany and enjoys enormous public attention.