Search results

During the past decade, Europe was confronted with major changes and events offering large opportunities for mobility. The EU enlargement process, the EU policies regarding youth, the economic crisis affecting national economies on different levels, political instabilities in some European countries, high rates of unemployment or the increasing number of refugees are only a few of the factors influencing net migration in Europe. Based on a set of socio-economic indicators for EU/EFTA countries and cluster analysis, the paper provides an overview of regional differences across European countries, related to migration magnitude in the identified clusters. The obtained clusters are in accordance with previous studies in migration, and appear stable during the period of 2005-2013, with only some exceptions. The analysis revealed three country clusters: EU/EFTA center-receiving countries, EU/EFTA periphery-sending countries and EU/EFTA outlier countries, the names suggesting not only the geographical position within Europe, but the trends in net migration flows during the years. Therewith, the results provide evidence for the persistence of a movement from periphery to center countries, which is correlated with recent flows of mobility in Europe.

Abstract
Youth unemployment is a challenge in many European countries – especially since the financial crises. Young people face difficulties in the transition from education into employment. This article focuses on young mobile Europeans from six countries (Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Norway, Romania and Spain). The research question is whether and to which extent international mobility has an impact on employability and therefore reduces youth unemployment. By using a cluster analysis of personal adaptability, social and human capital and career identity, the importance of mobility experiences for employability is analysed in a recent dataset of 5,272 young (formerly) mobile respondents. Youth mobility is established as a strong characteristic for the employability cluster. Mobility is however not the long-term aim of most of the mobile young people, since most of the mobiles choose to return to their home countries after one or more stays abroad.