Janus-faced mobilities: motivations for migration among European youth in times of crisis

One of the main rights of European citizens is freedom of movement, enabling them to live, work and study in the EU member states. However, it is only minority of Europeans who aspires to use their European passports and cross the national borders. In this paper we focus precisely on those who declare the wish to move to another EU member state. We point to Janus-faced character of mobility aspirations, distinguishing between feeling free to move versus feeling forced to move. We argue that this distinction sheds light on a new social division. Based on the Eurobarometer data (85.1OVR) we illustrate how the two groups, ‘free to move’ and ‘forced to move’, are equipped with different resources. In particular, feeling forced to move correlates with financial deprivation on an individual level and residence in a poorer, smaller country with higher levels of youth unemployment. In addition, our results suggest that aspirations for European mobility are linked with the sense of youth marginalization in their nation states.