From peripheral region to escalator region in Europe: Young Baltic graduates in London

Abstract

This paper examines recent migration from three little-studied EU countries, the Baltic states, focusing on early-career graduates who move to London. It looks at how these young migrants explain the reasons for their move, their work and living experiences in London, and their plans for the future, based on 78 interviews with individual migrants. A key objective of this paper is to rejuvenate the core-periphery structural framework through the theoretical lens of London as an 'escalator' region for career development. We add a necessary nuance on how the time dimension is crucial in understanding how an escalator region functions -both in terms of macro-events such as EU enlargement or economic crisis, and for life-course events such as career advancement or family formation. Our findings indicate that these educated young adults from the EU's north-eastern periphery migrate for a combination of economic, career, lifestyle and personal-development reasons. They are ambivalent about their futures and when, and whether, they will return-migrate.

Can the Concept of Lifestyle Migration be applied to Return Migration? The Case of Estonians in the UK

“…However, the current article suggests that there might be more factors behind migrants choosing to return before starting a family. King et al () make some suggestions indicating that migration to metropolises (escalator regions) might often be just temporary and used for career advancement. A return therefore might not be explicable only through emotional links with the homeland but also through the rational considerations of migrants in terms of their living environment.…”

“…However, emigration from Estonia to the UK also significantly increased from 2005 and especially after the economic crisis of 2008. The National Insurance Number registrations (NINo) indicate that 20,998 previous Estonian inhabitants registered in the decade 2004–2014 (King et al, ). Young adults (18–34 years) constitute nearly four‐fifths of the total.…”

And then came Brexit: Experiences and future plans of young EU migrants in the London region

“…In his seminal book Liquid Modernity , Bauman (, p. viii) argued that “forms of modern life may differ in quite a few respects—but what unites them all is precisely their fragility, temporariness, vulnerability and inclination to constant change.” We find Bauman's observation particularly useful for theorising the New European Youth Mobilities and associated youth‐to‐adult life transitions of migrants in the context of Brexit. Geographers and other social scientists have recently made several advances in the study of “liquid migration,” an offspring of Bauman's liquid modernity (see, e.g., Bygnes & Erdal, ; Engbersen & Snel, ; King, Lulle, Parutis, & Saar, ). Liquid migration has the following key features: such youth mobilities are predominantly work and study driven, are envisioned as temporary , are mainly invisible due to open borders, hence they are legal , and are spontaneous and unpredictable .…”

Dreaming of Sweden as a Space of Wellbeing: Lifestyle Migration Among Young Latvians and Romanians

“…Taken together, the mix of motivations for choosing Sweden among young Europeans from the new member states comes across as different compared to other receiving countries where short-term economic reasons tend to take prominence (Andrijasevic & Sacchetto 2016;Kureková 2013) and where the dilemma is between staying abroad to maximise economic and career benefits or returning home for social reasons or as a patriotic duty (Lulle & Buzinska 2017). Even though other studies also found that non-economic considerations play a role, they often take a secondary role, especially for young immigrants from new member states (Castro-Martín & Cortina 2015;Gilmartin & Migge 2015;King et al 2017). Previous studies in other receiving countries have also identified a preference for temporary mobility among higher skilled, especially in relation to family formation (Ferguson, Salominaite & Boersma 2016).…”

“…Krings et al (2013) noted that especially younger and more educated Polish migrants are part of a new generation of mobile Europeans, for whom the move abroad not only is work related but also involves lifestyle and well-being choices. Other findings indicate that educated young adults from the Baltic states migrate to London to improve their economic situation and career prospects as well as for lifestyle and personal development reasons (King et al 2017).…”