Abstract
Highly educated individuals constitute great assets for regional development and economic growth. Nevertheless, young university graduates are relatively geographically mobile and less likely to stay in peripheral regions. Based on semi‐structured, life‐calendar interviews, this study explored the immobility decisions of graduates who have stayed in a peripheral urban area in the Netherlands where they completed their university education. The study specifically focused on the roles of family and friends in the staying processes of these young adults. The results indicate that the decision to stay was frequently and consciously re‐evaluated by some, whereas for others, it resulted from a ‘lack of triggers’ for moving elsewhere. Notably, the interviews revealed that family and friends act as more than motives for staying or deterrents to migration. On various occasions, family and friends had played crucial roles as advisors, influencers, triggers, exemplars and facilitators in the staying processes of highly educated young adults.
Highlights
Julia (LIM, 28) was staying in Maastricht because her partner wanted to be close to his family, and Anouk (LIM, 28) would not let her family's geographical location deter her from moving in the future: over another in her current staying behaviour, which was true in most cases where interviewees mentioned multiple motives
Using semi-structured, life-calendar interviews, this study has explored the immobility decisions of university graduates and the roles of family and friends in their staying processes
The interviewees related key life events to the moments at which re-evaluations of immobility decisions took place and mentioned typical demographic life events as well as unique, personal events as triggers for such re-evaluations. These findings are in line with previous findings in the immobility literature (e.g., Haartsen & Stockdale, 2017; Hjälm, 2014; Stockdale et al, 2018; Ye, 2018) and highlight the position of nonmigration experiences in the interviewees' biographies (Barcus & Halfacree, 2018; Halfacree & Boyle, 1993)
Summary
Educated individuals embody strong human capital. For this reason, they are considered great assets in regional development and endogenous economic growth (Faggian, 2006; Faggian & McCann, 2009; Lucas, 1988; Romer, 1986). Living close to family and friends is expected to constitute a motive for staying and act as a deterrent to migrating in the immobility decisions of young, highly educated adults Another way in which family and friends have been found to exert influence on one's residential behaviour is through socialisation. Life-calendar grids have been used to provide direction and chronological structure to qualitative studies and to capture the timing and interlinkages of life events more accurately (e.g., Barbeiro & Spini, 2015, 2017; Kõu, van Wissen, van Dijk, & Bailey, 2015) These two methods were combined to allow a biographical approach to the staying processes of the interviewees, which was deemed crucial for treating nonmigration as an active component in their residential trajectories. Rick (NL, 40) had reevaluated his decision to stay when he was presented with a job offer in the Randstad, and Steffie (LIM, 33) linked her decision to stay in Maastricht to travelling abroad and a collectively experienced life event of her partner:
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