Residential Aspirations and Perception of Rural Youth of the Opportunities Offered By their Environment: the Case of a Spanish Inland Rural Area

Abstract

This study explores aspects which influence whether young people decide to remain in a rural area or move away. Based on a qualitative analysis of 41 open-ended interviews with young people from a rural area of inland Spain, it especially examines the perception they hold of the opportunities provided by their rural environment for labour market integration. The results show that: 1) agriculture, the economic base of the area, is not perceived as a means of social and labour market integration; 2) a high degree of mobility between the village and the city is a necessary condition for young people to remain in a rural area; 3) promoting the natural and cultural resources of an area strengthens the feeling of belonging and identity.

Rural Residence: Dreams for the Future and Foreseen Obstacles by Young Adults From the Netherlands

“…Career-related obstacles appeared more in the more peripheral region of Zeeland than in the more central region of Midden-Noord-Brabant. This confirms the popularity of rural areas close to cities as places where rural residential dreams and urban career dreams can be combined (Kuhmonen et al, 2016;Auclair & Vanoni, 2017;González et al, 2021). The following quotation shows an example of a respondent with a rural residential dream who foresaw career-related obstacles impeding the realisation of this dream:…”

An Agricultural Career through the Lens of Young People

“…Young people recognize the economic importance of agriculture in the area where they live, but do not see this activity as a first choice for their life's work [33]. This appears to be a trend in both developed [34][35][36][37] and developing countries [38].…”

“…The reward and income of off-farm employment is perceived as more adequate that agricultural ones. Parents, even those who are farmers, tend to inculcate in their offspring the idea that they should not work in agriculture, not necessarily and only because it is an economically unattractive option, but rather because it is symbolically less prestigious and more strenuous than other professions associated with a university degree [33,40,47].…”

“…Those who cannot inherit the land perceive acquiring it as extremely complicated. Land is considered expensive and most of the time, young people do not have their own capital to invest [33,57]. When they think about accessing a loan or a regional grant, they feel inadequate or not capable enough to deal with the necessary bureaucracy [58][59][60].…”

Land Policy for Rural Development in the European Union and its Impact on Access to Land

“…Access to land is an issue that is raised by many parties (Ingram and Kirwan, 2011). For young farmers, access to land is one of the main issues (Monllor i Rico and Fuller, 2016; González et al, 2021) standing in the way to their involvement in agriculture (Zondag et al, 2015). This relates both to inheritance of family farms (Leonard et al, 2017) and to the access of rural newcomers (Monllor i Rico and Fuller, 2016; Grubbström and Joosse, 2021).…”