Crisis Brain Drain: Short-term Pain/Long-Term Gain?

A Crisis‐Driven Migration? Aspirations and Experiences of the Post‐2008 South European Migrants in London

“…Despite differences in the relative volume of emigration, available data indicate that a common characteristic in all three countries is the relatively high number of university graduates (Conti, 2012;Labrianidis and Pratsinakis, 2016;Diaz-Hernandez and Parreno-Castellano, 2017). Apart from the self-selectivity of migration, by which the highly skilled are among those most likely to move and most capable of doing so, local labour market conditions seem to be particularly unfavourable for the highly skilled, thus explaining their over-representation among the emigrants.…”

“…The explanation for graduates' low employment rates in Southern EU countries lies not in the supply side (as the share of people with university education is around the EU mean for Greece and Spain and is the second lowest in the EU for Italy), but rather in the demand side of a labour market failing to absorb this educated workforce (Labrianidis and Pratsinakis, ). To that we should also add the features of nepotism, gerontocracy and informality of employment arrangements in these countries, all of which make up for labour markets that are inaccessible to the highly educated in Greece and Italy and, in the shadow of the crisis, increasingly so in Spain too.…”

“…In these Southern EU countries, especially in Greece and Italy, education does not provide strong advantages in terms of access to work, which is in contrast not only with the situation in West European countries but also in those of Eastern Europe, partly accounting for the difference in the educational backgrounds of East and South European mobile citizens (the former being more often lower skilled and the latter highly skilled). The explanation for graduates' low employment rates in Southern EU countries lies not in the supply side (as the share of people with university education is around the EU mean for Greece and Spain and is the second lowest in the EU for Italy), but rather in the demand side of a labour market failing to absorb this educated workforce (Labrianidis and Pratsinakis, 2017). To that we should also add the features of nepotism, gerontocracy and informality of employment arrangements in these countries, all of which make up for labour markets that are inaccessible to the highly educated in Greece and Italy and, in the shadow of the crisis, increasingly so in Spain too.…”

The ‘New’ Migration for Work Phenomenon: The Pursuit of Emancipation and Recognition in the Context of Work

“…This aversion to work mobility has changed dramatically since the crisis worsened. While employment prospects featured as a key reason for emigration, Labrianidis and Pratsinakis (2016) suggest that it is not the only determinant, since half of the emigrants in their study were employed in Greece at the time of their decision to leave (see also Mavrodi and Moutselos, 2017: 43). According to their findings and echoing Gropas and Triandafyllidou’s (2014) study, more poignant and powerful motivators for skilled migration than exclusion from the labour market were the following socio-psychological and political drivers, shaped by an observation of the broader malaise and moral decline: a general mistrust of institutions, disillusionment with the country’s political system, a belief that there are better and fairer socio-economic and political systems and conditions abroad, and feelings of insecurity about their future in Greece.…”

“…Insights from recent studies suggest that the new Southern European migrants are young and skilled and motivated less by purely economic considerations, as suggested by the dominant neoclassical theories of migration. Instead, they are motivated more so by the perceived and experienced incidence of corruption, undesirable conditions of work, mistrust of politicians and the political machinery, a perceived lack of meritocracy, and very bleak future prospects (Enriquez and Romera, 2014; Labriniadis and Pratsinakis, 2016; Lapshyna, 2014; Lapshyna and Düvell, 2015; Triandafyllidou and Gropas, 2014). With the exception of the aforementioned studies, analyses of this new migration for work phenomenon are in the main incomplete.…”