The role of cultural capital in life transitions among young intra-EU movers in Germany

Introduction to the Special Issue: European youth migration: human capital outcomes, skills and competences

“…Bourdieu also emphasised the importance of institutions' formal recognition of a person's cultural capital that facilitates the conversion of cultural capital into economic capital. Theoretical ideas are advanced by Aksakal and Schmidt (2019) to uncover such institutional or structural barriers in receiving societies.…”

“…These databases provide unique insights into the transferability of human capital in the context of the nine project-partner countries. The papers presented in this Special Issue offer a range of methodological approaches, using qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods; a particular feature is that some papers present a pan-European analysis (Janta et al 2019;McGarry et al 2019), others a two-country comparative analysis (Staniscia et al 2019) or single country cases (Moroşanu et al 2019;Baláž et al 2019;Emilsson and Mozetič 2019;Aksakal and Schmidt 2019), probing deeper into novel questions of human capital. The two studies outside of the YMOBILITY project (Palovic, Janta, and Williams 2019; Grabowska and Jastrzębowska 2019) focus on single country cases; Slovakia and Poland, utilising multiple data sources.…”

“…The focus here is on returnees in different contexts and human capital gains among circular migrants and other mobile groups. Four articles focus on under-studied contexts: examining return migration and its interrelations to location within Southern Europe by comparing returnees' occupational experiences in Italy and Spain (Staniscia et al 2019); exploring trajectories of 'lower-skilled' young migrants in the London region (Moroşanu et al 2019); and examining destination countries with rather highly regulated labour markets, in Sweden (Emilsson and Mozetič 2019) and Germany (Aksakal and Schmidt, 2019). Two articles, both outside of the YMOBILITY project, seek to embed the young migrants' experiences in a broader economic and social canvas: employers, as opposed to the young migrants' perspectives in Slovakia (Palovic, Janta, and Williams 2019) utilising qualitative data; and migration-related skills, both individual and social, contributing to an understanding of the spill-over effects of knowledge transfer after return in Poland (Grabowska and Jastrzębowska 2019) using both quantitative and qualitative data.…”

“…The article explains the impact of working abroad in these groups on non-formal human capital, commonly known as soft skills, captured in this paper as human capacities It also explains how migration experiences are connected to life skills of self-improvement, communicating and relating to people, and understanding society. Aksakal and Schmidt (2019) problematise the role of cultural capital and its linkages to human capital with specific attention to location and migrants' background. They argue that both external and internal conditions determine the levels and extent of capital migrants possess and are therefore relevant to further understanding of existing power constellations and inequalities.…”

Uneven professional paths: A study on highly qualified Chinese and Indian migrants in Germany

“…Social capital is frequently discussed as an asset which helps to reduce migration costs and risks, and as a factor that informs decisions to move to certain destinations, or to enroll in certain university programs or as contributing to integration in the host society (Beech, 2019; Meier, 2015a; Mulholland and Ryan, 2014; Ma, 2014). However, some scholars have highlighted diverse dynamics in destination countries that can affect the accumulation and use of valuable resources in competing for social positions in diverse fields, leading to adverse professional outcomes among migrants (Aksakal and Schmidt, 2019a; Thondhlana et al., 2016).…”