Migrating Abroad to Get Ahead: The Emigration of Young Spanish Adults During the Financial Crisis (2008–2013)

Abstract

Recent demographic trends in the population of Spain, as in other Mediterranean countries, show a period of high net immigration in the transition from the twentieth to the twenty­first century. In 2008, with the onset of the recession and the weakening of the Spanish job market, a new period of net emigration began. This phase has little in common with past trends, as two new types of primary actors have entered the scene: on the one hand, former immigrants who return to their home countries or develop different adaptation strategies, shifting back and forth between them as necessary, using their transnational connections and making migration processes more flexible; and on the other hand, Spanish youth and young adults who have been unable to find jobs in Spain, at least not ones commensurate with their skills and education. The emigration process of the second group—young skilled Spanish workers—is analyzed in this chapter. This work is based on a qualitative survey conducted in 2013 with a group of 170 informants obtained by snowball sampling, although we have also used other quantitative and qualitative sources to explore this topic in greater depth.