International youth mobility and life transitions in Europe: questions, definitions, typologies and theoretical approaches

This paper takes as its main focus the intersection of young people’s international mobility within Europe with a number of youth life transitions – from education to work, from unemployment to employment, and, more widely, from ‘youth’ to ‘adulthood’. It surveys both the extensive empirical literature on European youth migrations and a number of theoretical approaches which help to conceptualise and understand this youth-mobility phenomenon. Three categories of young intra-EU migrants are identified: students who are studying abroad, graduates who are working or seeking work abroad (the ‘higher-skilled’), and non-graduates working or looking for work abroad (the ‘lower-skilled’). The age-band is 16-35 years, although we acknowledge that ‘youth’ and ‘young adults’ are flexible categories. We also problematise the notion of skill and its various levels. Amongst the theoretical lenses we deploy to frame youth mobility are economic theory (neoclassical and ‘new economics’), social networks, life-course studies, temporal conjunctures (EU enlargement, the 2008 ‘crisis’), and core-periphery dynamics. The three longest sections of the paper review the empirical and theoretical literatures on mobile students and higher- and lower-skilled workers. The concluding discussion reviews policy measures taken at EU, national and local levels.