Unequal Youth Migrations: Exploring the Synchrony between Social Ageing and Social Mobility among Post-Crisis European Migrants

Abstract

This article explores how symbolic boundaries between youth and adulthood shape experiences of upward and downward social mobility among EU migrants. Drawing on 56 biographical interviews with Italians who moved to England after the 2008 economic crisis, and focusing on three individual case studies, the article reveals that normative understandings of adulthood emerge as a central concern from participants’ biographical accounts, and that they mobilise unequal forms of cultural, economic and social capital to maintain a feeling of ‘synch’ between social ageing and social mobility. Drawing on Bourdieu and the sociology of adulthood, the article proposes the notion of synchrony to explore how tensions in the relationship between social ageing and social mobility shape experiences of migration. This allows for an innovative theoretical bridge between cultural class analysis, adulthood studies and migration studies, and for a better understanding of how intersections of class and age shape intra-European migrations.

The coloniality of distinction: Class, race and whiteness among post-crisis Italian migrants

“…This article examines the intersection of migration, class and whiteness. The impact of other divisions has been (Varriale, 2019) or will be explored in other publications.…”

“…This cultural imaginary is entwined with a negative representation of Southern Europe as affected by corruption, nepotism, inefficient bureaucracies and a backward 'mentality' (Bartolini et al, 2017;Conti, 2012). This narrative script comparing more and less 'developed' European societies magnifies absolute cultural differences while obscuring social divisions among Southern European migrants (Varriale, 2019). Moreover, the racialised undertones of this narrative, and their implications for understanding migrants' subjectivities and experiences, remain ignored by the current literature.…”

“…Since the 2008 economic crisis, a growing literature has started exploring the reactivation of South-to-North migrations within Europe (Bartolini et al, 2017;Bygnes & Erdal, 2016). This scholarship has addressed mainly graduates and high-skilled professionals and, despite some exceptions (Varriale, 2019), has largely ignored how class inequalities shape the biographies and subjectivities of post-crisis EU migrants. Moreover, the intersection between class and nationally specific inflections of whiteness remains a particularly neglected topic.…”

Self‐legitimation and sense‐making of Southern European parents' migration to Norway: The role of family aspirations

“…Studies within the field of intra‐European migration have stressed that higher wages and job opportunities are not the sole drivers for South–North mobility after 2008, but Southern Europeans' broader life aspirations play a crucial role in their decision to emigrate (Pratsinakis, King, Himmelstine, & Mazzilli, 2019; Varriale, 2020). Particularly, researchers have stressed political dissatisfaction, searching for better quality of life, self‐fulfilment, career opportunities, pursuing an intergenerational middle‐class position, leading an independent adult life and ensuring stability for the future of their children as reasons for this migration (Bartolini, Gropas, & Triandafyllidou, 2017; Bonizzoni, 2018; Bygnes, 2017; Bygnes & Flipo, 2017; Lafleur, Stanek, & Veira, 2017, p. 6; Pratsinakis, 2019a; Pratsinakis et al, 2019; Triandafyllidou & Gropas, 2014; Varriale, 2020).…”

“…To better understand their aspirations, it is relevant to look at the life stage in which migrants were when they decided to migrate (Bonizzoni, 2018; Bygnes & Flipo, 2017; Varriale, 2020). When the majority of our informants left their countries of origin, they were in the process of transition to adulthood.…”