Between stuckness and stillness: Why do young adults not undertake temporary mobility?

Abstract

Youth temporary mobility occurs for purposes such as volunteering, Erasmus exchanges and linguistic stays. Although it is increasingly common, a large proportion of young adults are not mobile. This study is based on a large-scale survey among young adults in Switzerland. It draws on the concept of motility to analyse the barriers to temporary mobility, where motility may be defined as a set of mobility resources that refer to three dimensions: access (e.g., financial means or time), skills (e.g., languages and self-confidence) and appropriation (e.g., level of interest). A typology places nonmobile young adults on a continuum between ‘stillness’ (no desire to move) and ‘stuckness’ (unable to move) and identifies four groups: ‘the constrained’ and ‘the financially challenged’ are often constrained to a varying extent by their socio-economic background, their educational pathways and their family network. ‘The locally anchored’ and especially ‘the satisfied stayers’ face fewer constraints and draw more on their own agency to be nonmobile.