A Round-Trip Ticket? Migration profiles and trajectories of Spanish university graduates

Abstract

The difficulties Spanish university students face in the labour market – especially since the beginning of the 2008 crisis – have made emigration a recurring topic of public debate. However, the scarcity of available statistical sources has limited its quantitative analysis. This paper provides original empirical evidence on the trajectories, profiles, motivations and destinations of university graduates based on the Labour Insertion Survey of University Graduates for the 2009/2010 academic year (EILU-2014). The results show that: a) in the five years following their graduation, 22% of the graduates had lived abroad for some time, although the majority had already returned to Spain; and b) a notable diversity in migration projects by country of destination and field of study.

Keywords

• spain
• university graduates
• youth mobility
• skilled mobility
• emigration
• crisis