Between stuckness and stillness: Why do young adults not undertake temporary mobility?

Abstract

Youth temporary mobility occurs for purposes such as volunteering, Erasmus exchanges and linguistic stays. Although it is increasingly common, a large proportion of young adults are not mobile. This study is based on a large-scale survey among young adults in Switzerland. It draws on the concept of motility to analyse the barriers to temporary mobility, where motility may be defined as a set of mobility resources that refer to three dimensions: access (e.g., financial means or time), skills (e.g., languages and self-confidence) and appropriation (e.g., level of interest). A typology places nonmobile young adults on a continuum between 'stillness' (no desire to move) and 'stuckness' (unable to move) and identifies four groups: 'the constrained' and 'the financially challenged' are often constrained to a varying extent by their socio-economic background, their educational pathways and their family network. 'The locally anchored' and especially 'the satisfied stayers' face fewer constraints and draw more on their own agency to be nonmobile.

»Should I Stay or Should I Go?« Prevalence and Predictors of Spatial Mobility among Youth in the Transition to Vocational Education and Training in Germany

“…While the general SEU model advocates that a range of different goals and preferences are decisive, especially for young people, job-related reasons are a key determinant for spatial mobility (Haldimann et al 2021;Kalter 1997;Kaufmann et al 2018;Lemistre and Magrini 2011). The frame selection model (Esser 1990) states that individuals do not consider an arbitrary number of attributes when evaluating alternative actions, but focus their decisions on primary goals based on their situational dominance.…”

“…Following life-cycle models widely used in migration research (Chen and Rosenthal 2008;Détang-Dessendre et al 2008;Wagner 1989) as well as the motility framework (Kaufmann et al 2004), it can be assumed that for young people in transition from school to VET, their mobility decisions are primarily guided by their occupational orientations. As studies have shown that mobility can be seen as an instrumental decision (Haldimann et al 2021;Kaufmann et al 2004;Schlimbach et al 2018;Waibel 2019), youths' occupational orientations constitute agentic push factors of becoming spatially mobile. Youths that aspire to occupations entailing a higher socio-economic status, such as IT specialists, industrial mechanics, or medical assistants, can expect higher benefits, e.g., in terms of monetary returns and social status, and thus have a higher motivation to achieve their aspired goals.…”

“…Most studies that address social binding factors examine the role of partnership, marital status, and children on spatial mobility, as these studies focus on the spatial mobility of individuals in the workforce or labor force (Kaufmann et al 2018;Lemistre and Magrini 2011;Reichelt and Abraham 2017;Rouwendal 1999;Wagner 1989;Windzio 2004); however, selected studies have also shown that, especially among adolescents, the unwillingness to leave family and friends behind leads to a lower willingness to be spatially mobile (Aaltonen 2021;Haldimann et al 2021) and, among students seeking VET, the importance of social networks in the hometown is a major reason for not seeking a training position outside their home district (Wolf et al 2004).…”

Local Ties as Self-Reported Constraints to Internal Migration in Spain

“…Some studies we were able to trace are interview-based explorations among small numbers of research participants who could be identified as stayers (Hjälm, 2014 ; Stockdale et al, 2018 ; Thomassen, 2021 ). Several other studies—based on survey data—used information about the importance of fixed-category factors underlying desires or decisions to stay among specific categories of young adults (Haldimann et al, 2021 ; Hofstede et al, 2022 ; Hooijen et al, 2020 ; Rérat, 2016 ). These works have painted valuable pictures of people’s immobility experiences and uncovered some of the complexity of people’s decision-making processes.…”

Temporary youth mobility: motivations and benefits from a life-course perspective

“…An increasing number of young adults pursue a temporary mobility experience, such as going abroad to learn a new language or taking a gap year (Haldimann, Heers, and Rérat 2021;King and Raghuram 2013;Smith, Rérat, and Sage 2014;Van Mol and Timmerman 2014;Zimmermann and Neyer 2013). Temporary mobility can be educational, professional, or cultural, but excludes holidays.…”