Opting out for Getting in: Existential Mobility in European Graduates’ Migration to Asia

Abstract

This article examines young Europeans’ emigration from Europe. Qualitative interviews with mostly white Europeans in Singapore and Tokyo reveal how these young migrants’ motility, or “potential to move”, enables them to migrate through largely overlooked channels. Fear of immobility in Europe triggers these highly-educated Europeans’ existential and physical mobility to Asia where they compete with host-country nationals and non-white migrants for jobs. Categorization into three types of access to employment unpacks the complexity behind graduates’ mobility trajectories out of the European labor market and demonstrates their rising precariousness in post-Lehman shock Europe and their changing bargaining power in the world.

Keywords:

• Middling migration
• Japan
• Singapore
• European crisis
• motility
• existential mobility

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The sample includes one informant from Iceland, which is not an EU state but which is part of the passport-free Schengen Zone and two informants from the UK who were still EU citizens at the time of the study.

2 Shūkatsu in Japan takes six to ten months and includes attendance of prospective employers’ information events, submission of documents online and several rounds of essays, computer-based tests and interviews (Kosugi, 2017).

3 Singapore and Japan apply strict terms for skilled work visa. Visa are tied to the employer and require a tertiary degree, specialization in the field of one’s training and in Singapore a minimum monthly salary which is high compared to most other OECD countries (Ministry of Manpower [MoM], 2018).

4 The V.I.E. French International Internship Program, founded in 2001 by the French Ministry of Foreign Trade, promotes French exports abroad. European graduates are eligible to apply for an overseas working assignment for a period varying between six up to 24 months (Ubifrance, 2015).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Haraguchi Memorial Asia Research Fund, from which I received grants in 2014–2015 and 2016–2017, and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [Kiban C 15K03884: ‘Beyond Multiculturalism: Organizational Logics and Cultural Practices at Japanese Workplaces’, principal investigator Gracia Liu-Farrer].