Growing-up young adults and their social agency in migration: how Ukrainian children initiate and mediate their own migration within the family unit

ABSTRACT

In an earlier period of migration studies, young people were overlooked, but scholars later began to study their position and perspective. Within the transnational family they are often studied as “abandoned” in the country of origin or as reunified with parent(s) in the country of immigration. Nevertheless, in both cases parents are seen as decision-makers whether young people will migrate or stay. A different angle provides studies of independent child migration or unaccompanied minors from Africa or Latin America. These young people are capable of developing their agency to the extent that they can migrate alone and neglect negotiation with parents as a result of conflict or different objectives. This article elaborates this topic and shows that growing-up adults from Western Ukraine (15–16 years-old when migrated) are also social agents, capable of triggering their own migration independently of parents as a consequence of experience from short-term stays in the country of immigration, as well as meritocratic principles and distinct generational outlooks.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• Czech Republic
• social agency
• Ukraine
• unaccompanied children

Introduction

Ukraine experienced a considerable economic crisis after 2013, when the country nearly became bankrupt and its recession increased emigration. This was associated with the war in Eastern Ukraine (2014 – ongoing). While the COVID-19 epidemic typically worsened the conditions, many Ukrainians became discouraged concerning their political and economic circumstances, as their hope for a brighter future vanished and migration from Western Ukraine to Central Europe arose even before the Russia invasion of Ukraine (2022). Unpleasant affections were widespread and Ukrainians – young people among them – were more involved in emigration tendencies. In consonance with that, Ukrainian migration was studied earlier in the context of labour migration (Kindler and Fedyuk 2016) and later increased studies of reunification of families (Nikolova and Maroufof 2016) and of student migration (Jaroszewicz 2015). In the future can be expected studies concerning Ukrainian refugees.¹

This study – finished before the Russian invasion of Ukraine – discusses young Ukrainians (15–16 years-old) studying in the Czech Republic and their agency in migration. To be more specific, the agency of young Ukrainians is analysed in regard with their pre-migration experiences from short-term stays in the Czech Republic, because during their sojourns they were able to compare the Ukrainian and the Czech environments, resulting in their attraction to the latter. Thus children imposed their proclivity for migration to their parents and this article analyzes the designation of specific student migration.

Children have already been studied as social actors and agents within the concept of transnational family (Fresnoza-Flot and Nagasaka 2015), but their migration is seemingly still derived from parental decision rather than from children (Boccagni 2013; Fog-Olwig 2012; Moskal and Tyrrell 2016). Differently are children studied as unaccompanied child migrants, but this term is mostly connected with Latin America and Africa. They became the first migrants in the country of immigration, while their parents are left behind in the country of origin (Whitehead, Hashim, and Iversen 2007). These children have already been studied as young people capable to bring about inducting of their migration independently of parental decision and that capability is introduced in this article in the Ukrainian context and intergenerational prospect. The primary purpose of the participant´s migration is studying, along with a future perspective of living and working in an economically advanced country.

Although the impact of stays is seen as significant in participant´s narratives, there are other patterns also triggering migration from Western Ukraine, such as a strong emigration propensity, a geopolitical inclination towards the European Union and developed meritocratic principles. Hence, young Ukrainians are shaped by additional influences, but the impact of short-term stays is interpreted by participants themselves as decisive. In this article is primarily preserved that perspective.

In subsequent lines will be elaborated children’s managing of migration within the family, followed by methodology and findings in analysis section. This study pointed out that 15–16-years-old children must not necessarily be dependent on parental decision-making processes concerning migration, but they are able to reach their migration objectives alone due to their experiences from short-term stays. Methodological constraints between the terms mobility and immobility or migration and mobility are not methodologically scrutinized. This study is primarily focused on the enforcement of movement. The nuclear family, consisting of parents and children, is brought into awareness; although limitations upon kinship ties to the nuclear family could have been seen as methodologically problematic (Baldassar and Merla 2014).

Existing research concerning adolescent agency in migration

Young people´s perspective in migration studies has been unrecognized for a long time (Hardman 2001; Sime 2017) since youths were disregarded as “unheard” (Fresnoza-Flot and Nagasaka 2015, 23), as well as “unable to move or look after themselves” (Dobson 2009, 356) or “burdens” (Fog-Olwig 2012, 941–942; Orellana et al. 2001, 578). This originated from emphasizing the adult-centric perspective (Dobson 2009; Fresnoza-Flot and Itaru 2015), when parents spoke on behalf of children and imposed their will upon children’s acting. Accordingly, the decision-making process concerning migration was generally conceded to parental output² (see Orellana et al. 2001; Baldassar and Merla 2014; Boccagni 2013; Dobson 2009; Dreby 2007, 2010; Fog-Olwig 2012; Jiménez-Alvarez 2015a; Kirova 2010; Kofman 2012; Lahaie et al. 2009; Moskal and Tyrrell 2016; ParreñParreñAs 2005; Veale and; Donà 2014; Whitehead and Hashim 2005). However, certain authors did not explicitly provide their findings concerning the initiation of migration within family units (Moskal and Tyrrell 2016).

The positionality and perspective of descendants was later established as an autonomous and central topic for parental decisions (Ackers 2000; Bushin 2009; Sime 2017). Young people were conceptualized within the transnational family as “left-behind children” or children “migrated as part of family unit” who (un)experienced growing up with parents (Huijsmans 2015). Although, while their construction of social relations and the self-making process was intentionally considered in research (Fresnoza-Flot and Nagasaka 2015; see also Ensor and Gozdziak 2010; Moskal and Tyrrell 2016), the instigation of their own migration remained elusive (see Amy et al. 2019; Bhapha 2016; Seeberg and Goździak 2016). Despite emphasized deflection from adult-centred perspective and devoting spotlight on situational and relational agency and acting framed by cultural, social or political circumstances, parents are still seen as the decisive “brokers” of migration (see Veale and Donà 2014). Thus young people are not seen as social agents who are able to adequately express their comprehensive role in migration (Knörr and Angela 2005) due to their objectification in the emergence of migration (Holdsworth 2013).

Nevertheless, scholars also elaborated with “unaccompanied minors” or “independent child migrants,” who migrated independently (or autonomously) on parents. These young people are mainly from Africa (Huijsmans 2011, 2015; Jiménez-Alvarez 2015a, 2015b) or Latin America (Bhapha 2016) and they struggle with an “illegal” position as migrant-refugees who are smuggled or trafficked (transported or traded) through borders (see Allsopp and Chase 2019; Amy et al. 2019; Bhabha and Schmidt 2008; Bhapha 2016; Carpena-Méndez 2014; Donà 2014; Hillmann and Dufner 2019; Huijsmans 2011; Jacqueline, Kanics, and Hernandez 2018; Jiménez-Alvarez 2015a, 2015b; Whitehead and Hashim 2005). Hence, the authors conceivably provided children’s agency (Huijsmans 2015), but the term “independent child migration” is limited to refugees or to illegal processes. However, the term “independent child migrants” rather anticipate migration physically alone because it is a prospective family strategy when children autonomously migrate while their parents are left-behind (Whitehead, Hashim, and Iversen 2007) but their movement is not rendered independently of parental decision. Therefore, it is more considered as a state of being without parents, then as state of mind (Huijsmans 2015). The reason is that the children´s route could be planned, discussed and supported by parents and they also relied on children´ earnings (Edmonds and Shrestha 2012; Whitehead, Hashim, and Iversen 2007).

Furthermore, young migrants could circumvent parental influence by lies or decide to leave without providing parents information about their intentions. Negotiations with parents could be neglected (Whitehead, Hashim, and Iversen 2007) as a result of unacceptable or unpleasant conflicts with them (Iversen 2002), when the objectives of parents and children fail to coincide (Thorsen 2005). Therefore, different interests could lead to an escape from home.

Consequently, young people could develop their agency to migrate independently of a parental mindset and this is elaborated in this article devoted to migration from Ukraine to the Czech Republic, thus to East-West migration (and not to South-to-North migration). Comparing with “independent child migrants” from Africa and Latin America, participants in this research experienced legal procedures of movements, they have privileged class status due to financial and social situations and, moreover, are from completely disparate political, social and economic environment. This will be elaborated in the following lines.

Social agency is the paramount concept, it enables an understanding of how spatial, economic, familial, cultural, political, social, structural and other contextual factors are constructed and limit the lives of young people (Fresnoza-Flot and Nagasaka 2015b). However, research of independent child migration and unaccompanied minors concentrates more on the impact of migration on young people lives and their social agency is therefore influenced by outer conditions that affect them (Edmonds and Shrestha 2012; Huijsmans 2017; Jiménez-Alvarez 2015b; Whitehead, Hashim, and Iversen 2007). Thus young people are then described by determinative actions. They might reflect these affections but they are mainly active agents of their constituency. Importantly for social agency, adolescents in this research are from the Western part of Ukraine, which is geopolitically oriented towards the European Union, although they primarily recognized Ukrainian environment as uninventive thanks to their experiences from abroad, and their aspiration drives them out of their homes.

According to age, authors usually differ between young people of preadolescence age (they do not want to leave country of origin and feel comfortable there³; age of 10–13) and adolescence age (when they are more capable to negotiate migration with their parents; age of 13–17). “Left-behind children” and “children migrated as part of a family unit” are usually seen as younger then “unaccompanied minors” or “independent child-migrants” who might be 18-years-old or slightly younger. However, chronological age can not be claimed as social age (Edmonds and Shrestha 2012; Iversen 2002). The intersection between chronological age and social category is often blurred and without context to behaviour – chronological age does not express meaningful processes, especially when social age is based on everyday interaction (Huijsmans 2015). The social aspects of growing up and its relationship to age should be adequately recognized in a specific cultural and social context rather than taking chronological age into account as a social category. Relativistic performance is more important than demographic standards (Huijsmans 2017) and the age of 15–16-years-old should not be even recognized as a milestone for children who can move independently (Thorne 2009).

Specific categories, such as children or adolescents, could also bring about an alleged normativity instead of relativistic view. Classification provides the promotion of certain rights, responsibilities and associations with the “adequacy” of specific age-activities (see Huijsmans 2017) but the designation of behaviour judged as desirable for generalized standards is highly problematic and unnatural (see Huijsmans 2011, 2015). Similar categorizations dissociate participants from their everyday interactions and neglect participants’ self-understanding, because it claims established norms of behaviour. For a more comprehensive and relational perception, this article adopts the term growing-up young adults (see Seeberg and Goździak 2016). This is based on participants supposed ability to develop their own mature objectives and the capability to achieve appreciated autonomy, self-realization and social reposition (Huijsmans and Baker 2012).

The following parts analyse the beginning of the migration route of 15–16-years-old growing-up young adults. Moreover, parents are included in the analysis on account of multifaceted and multigenerational perspective (Myra and Korbin 2007) and it further provides descendants negotiations in the light of the agency of adults (Bühler-Niederberger and Schwittek 2013). The last part presents a discussion concerning the arrangement of migration routes from a growing-up young adults’ perspectives.

Methodology

Qualitative anthropological research was conducted during 2013–2019 in Western Ukraine (specifically, in towns Dubno and Lutsk) and in the Czech Republic during the same time (in towns Uničov, Rychnov nad Kněžnou and Šumperk). Research endured for a long time as it was originally part of a dissertation project which lasted many years.⁴ The methodological inspiration was Marc-Anthony Falzon’s (2009) approach of multi-sited ethnography, which is based on studying the differences between specific phenomena concentrated in more places (rather than on globalized flows of people, ideas and relations which is, for instance, the Marcus approach [1995; Marcus 1999a, 1999b, 2011]). Important for this research were the differences between the Czech and Ukrainian social, economic, cultural and political environments.

Participants are all students and all of them are presently living in the Czech Republic while their parents stayed in Ukraine.⁵ A majority of young participants were located in the Czech Republic at the time of interview (nine participants) and fewer in Ukraine (five participants; meetings were realized during summer). Additionally, nine interviews in country of origin were conducted with parents (from six families; three married couples were interviewed simultaneously). Accomplishing additional interviews was impossible because some parents were working outside Ukraine and some other young participants did not want to “annoy their parents” (and were unable to provide contacts on them). However, three interviewed parents were persuaded by their descendants of the benefits of migration and encountering these adults was valuable for the research.

Researching mediation of migration in households is certainly unique, but studying negotiations by participant observation was not possible, even if these debates could serve as a comprehensive understanding of the migration process, because household discussions were primarily undertaken before migration and thus before conducting interviews. Therefore, this research relies on narratives, but spoken “stories” could exclusively allow an understanding of how young people provide a sense of their own subjectivity, identification and migration experience (Montero-Sieburth et al. 2021).

An average interview lasted about 60 minutes per person. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and saved in the author’s personal archive. Participants were asked about their experiences from short-term stays in the Czech Republic, migration routes (emigration tendencies, visa policy, arrival), adaptation to the Czech environment, decision-making processes concerning migration, negotiations with parents, transnational bonds with parents, everyday situation in school and after school and – more generally – on their transnational ties back to Ukraine. One interview was brought about with participant before her departure to the Czech Republic, but she was already enrolled in a Czech high school. Participants were often able to speak fluently in Czech, but interviews with parents had to be conducted in the Ukrainian language. Interviews were then categorized and analysed and the decision-making process within the family unit became the most interesting part of the entire research.

As Table 1 shows, participants (15–16-years-old) were mostly young women (eleven females and three young men), all of them had student status and with parents mostly working as entrepreneurs or administrative workers (in eleven cases).

Table 1. Main characteristics of participants.

Demographic data		Total
Gender (growing-up young adults only)	Male	3
	Female	11
Age (up to date of migration; growing-up young adults only)	15-years old	8
	16-years old	5
	17-years old	1
Employment of parents	Doctor, nurse	2
	Teacher, academician, worker in school	5
	Administrative work	5
	Policeman/fireman	1
	Lawyer	1
	Barber	1
	Professional driver	1
	Working abroad (often in low-paid job)	3 (one with better salary)
	Entrepreneur (with different goods)	8
Residency in the Czech Republic (growing-up young adults only)	Uničov	11
	Hradec Králové	1
	Other	2
Residency in Ukraine (growing-up young adults only)	Dubno	11
	Rivne	1
	Kvasyliv	1
	Lutsk	1

Two participants did not talk about their fathers (their parents were divorced).

Table 2 shows complementary interviews – with the Consul General from the Consulate General of the Czech Republic in Lviv, with two Czech teachers (one from high school in Uničov and second from high school in Šumperk; both of them originally proposed to participants opportunity of study in Uničov) and with heads of Czech associations from Dubno and Lutsk. These interviews were mainly conducted for clarifying the migration routes of young participants and for further understanding of other factors (explaining visa policy, the enrolling procedure at high schools or language proficiency of participants).

Table 2. Conducted interviews/family care.

Members of transnational family interviewed in Czech Republic/Ukraine 22
Participants living in Czech Republic (15–16 years old) 14
Parents interviewed in Ukraine 9
Both parents caring 10 families (20 individuals; one family has twins in Czech Republic) One parent caring (separated, no ‘interest in the descendant) 4 individuals Parent abroad (e.g. in Poland)/separated 4 individuals Father living abroad 2 Mother living abroad 2 Relatives living in the Czech Republic 3

Samantha Punch (2002) stated that participant observation is a relevant method for studying young people. She asserts it for younger children, but observation could also be feasible for growing-up young adults. According to research in Western Ukraine, utilizing of this method was limited due to insufficient opportunities to research parents and their descendants together in one household during mutual negotiations and it was rather used in incidental and specific occasions. One such was a summer camp in Nová Ves nad Nisou (2015), where the opportunity to study how children’s view of the Czech Republic is being constructed was a viable potential. Unfortunately, the coordinators of the camp were not able to understand the research intentions and it was not possible to be involved in important camp activities. Therefore, the research in camp was realized for only two days.

Participant observation was accomplished during participant´s tourist stays in Prague and Brno in the Czech Republic. Their sojourns provided occasions to observe changing attitudes towards the Czech environment and participants were also willing to provide information concerning local ways of life and living standards. For that reason was more valuable to receive data from tourist stays then from summer camp. This helped to clarify unclear remarks that arose during the research.

Measures of Czech immigration policy were also studied as well as participants´ social networks, but these aspects were not decisive for the context of this article. Facets of immigration policy are significant, but are not the aim of this study. Information from WhatsApp, Viber, Instagram and Facebook was gathered, but adopting personal data into the research could be seen as too private and ethically problematic. Therefore, mostly data given by participants during interviews was taken into consideration.

Notices from the interviews and participant observation were written into the field-diary. They mainly consisted of remarks concerning the participant´s relationship to their nuclear family, the social stratification of Ukrainian society and political situation in Ukraine. It is also worth notice that adolescents in this research are of heterogeneous social-economic backgrounds (Table 1).

Findings: view of the Czech Republic as a country of immigration and negotiations with parents

Ukraine is one of the poorest countries in Europe and this is accompanied by an unsuccessful transition towards a market oriented economy. As a part of the Soviet Union (1944–1991), Ukraine was an economically advanced Soviet republic, but after the dissolution of the Soviet Empire and gaining independence (1991), living standards dramatically fell across Ukraine. Its transformation did not lead to affluence, although Ukrainians – at least in the West of Ukraine – became geopolitically oriented towards Europe.

Young people now struggle with their social and economic situation, as buying a flat or a house is almost impossible for them due to their limited income. Many young people are unemployed, social programmes are plundered by corruption, shortages of supplies of electricity are not abnormal and widespread poverty and social and job insecurity led to alcoholism.

There are benefits after 1991, such as freedom, travelling and consumer goods, which are highly appreciated by younger generations and this orient them even more towards the “West.” However, “external” circumstances limit their options. Their social and economic situation is the most decisively negative element for their living prospects, along with other structural problems in the entire country and recently with the war. Subsequently, young people often try to escape from these problems – and migration to the “West” is the solution – but not all are able to manage their migration, due to a lack of both resources and opportunities.

This also stems from generational differences, due to discrepancies between the Soviet totalitarian state and Ukrainian democratic political system. Participants´ grandparents and parents were born in the more “stable Soviet ascriptive” system, where working opportunities were lined for almost all members of the society and grandparents and parents had to obey the rules dictated by the government. Although there were the opportunities to enforce the agency, they were often accustomed to being settled in the location where they were born, knew their neighbours from the school, shared common experiences with them and married in their early twenties to a man or woman from the neighbourhood. They worked for most of their life in one working place and spent their holidays in the same country, even if they travelled rarely. They had little influence on the decisions of which school to enrol or which employment after graduation they could achieve (Roberts 2009). They were embraced into more ascriptive social groups, even if all of this was not quite as ordered as some researchers supposed. The generation of their descendants enjoys more possibilities; it is not the generation to which the way of life is ordered. Young people are able to achieve personal development because conditions for them are more meritocratic and less ascriptive, even if some aspects from the Soviet regime remained, such as the frontal teaching system which practically persisted unchanged from Soviet times. However, it is assumed that they might achieve their specific position in a social hierarchy by their own effort, with supposed extended individualization and their future being less predictable. For instance, they are often asked by parents “kym chochesh buty?” (what employment do you want to have?) and job is not provided by the system for them, but they must ask family members, friends, neighbours or search the internet to find employment. However, they also need to reflect more on their capability, dispositions and opportunities and try to plan their life. They must be more responsible for themselves and make more decisions (for instance, whether for a job or education, as well as whether to stay within parental comfort or achieve education far from parents). However, they are still involved in many interactions with others in their social world. They are living in a meritocratic principle, which assumes the fluidity and changes of social links, and this should be associated with social agency because life is no longer predictable.

According to participants in this research, most were born and socialized in smaller town Dubno (population is 37 000 inhabitants), one participant is from Kvasyliv (8 000) and only two grew up in a regional town Rivne (244 000). Therefore, most participants were accustomed to live in rural regions in Western Ukraine with insufficient prospective working and educational opportunities and this specifically determined their mindset. Local conditions, generally positive attitude to states West of Ukrainian borders, loosening of standards in their life course, spreading meritocratic principles and a lack of perspective produced the ambition to take opportunities (Roberts 2009, 2016). Despite limitations, young participants want to realize their own objectives and migration to the European Union is conceivably the result even if this means separation from a parental ascriptive viewpoint. Although many parents pragmatically realized that “there is no future in Ukraine” for their children and some of them were even able to save money for their descendants´ subsequent life course, they are not necessarily the initiators of migration. Their social agency operates within generational perspectives and it could be young people who want to accommodate their lives with more meritocratic ambitions; although that mostly depends upon successful negotiations with parents about migration.

Young adults´ migratory ambitions are accompanied by impulses from short-term stays in the Czech Republic. These sojourns are financially supported by the Czech government and they have educational (such as learning the Czech language during stays) or curative purposes (as a consequence of the Chernobyl disaster, even if it occurred a long time ago). Additionally, participants are also affected by tourist stays in the Czech Republic arranged by their parents or other family members. Educational and curative stays – in a form of summer camps – are realized in the countryside of the Czech borderlands, but participants also visits castles inland, the capital of the Czech Republic, shops, art exhibitions and museums. As a result, participants register the Czech environment as more prosperous and advanced than their Ukrainian milieu and calculate that migration can be a plausible outcome.

Moreover, it should be revealed that participants have additional information about the situation in the Czech Republic from their friends, media or the internet and this also has a certain impact on their imagination. Therefore, besides their short-term stays, they are able to recognize the prosperity of the Czech Republic in comparison to the Ukrainian environment from other sources, but regarding the interviews, they are able to demonstrate an interconnection between their experiences from the Czech milieu and migration tendencies:

Marta: I saw life in the Czech Republic thanks to summer camps. We were in towns and I just saw that people have a better life. I saw it, definitely. Because I was not abroad, just at these camps.⁶

Participant observation also showed that participants are enthusiastic about living conditions in the Czech environment. For instance, participants were astonished that pensioners could afford meals in restaurants as this is not usual in Ukraine due to low pensions. Other aspects in narratives were associated with cleaner vegetables, bigger shopping malls and equipment in these malls or with an appreciation for products of higher quality from Western European countries. These “details” provide insight into a general perception of the Czech and Ukrainian (in the Western part of the country) milieu.

The Czech Republic is thus labelled by the terms “civilization” or “developed state,” which means material, political, educational and economic benefits. This perspective is not exceptional for young people moving outside their country of origin (Whitehead, Hashim, and Iversen 2007) because they were previously unable to see their original environment as innovative. According to the last group consisted of five participants (Table 3), they became vigorously engaged in migration and this was a preliminary step for discussing migratory options with their parents.

Table 3. Growing-up young adults and their migration attitude.

Young participants
	Date of birth	Number of short-term stays in the Czech Rep	Wanted to migrate?
K.L.	1995	(firstly on entrance examination)	No
M. S.	1996	3	Yes (had to persuade parents)
K. P.	1996	10 and more	Yes (decided parents, but she agreed)
H. P.	1996	10 and more	Yes (decided parents, but she agreed)
O. S.	1997	– (firstly on entrance examination)	No (but then agreed with parents)
A. P.	1997	1	No (but then agreed with parents)
I. K.	1998	5–6 (does not know exactly)	Yes (had to persuade parent)
S.K.	2000	1	Yes (had to persuade parents)
E.M.	2000	‘more time’ (does not know exactly)	No (but then agreed with parents)
J.I.	2000	1	No (but then agree with parents)
O.V	2001	2	Yes (decided parents, but she agreed)
S.M.	2001	5	Yes (decided parents, but she agreed)
L.K.	2001	3	Yes (had to persuade parent)
E.S.	2000	2	Yes (had to persuade parent)

According to migration itself, the first research question was straightforward: “Was it your decision to come to the Czech Republic or was it the decision of your parents?” The above-mentioned five participants answered that it was “their decision” or “they want to go.” However, they also stressed one important point – their migration aspiration was strong but the Czech diasporic association in Dubno proposed them studying in Uničov and this was originally the idea of representatives of Uničov high school due to a lack of Czech students. The opportunity was predisposed, migration was within their reach, and after that followed mutual negotiations among young adults and parents. These discussions mainly proceeded in family households and parents were often anxious and full of doubts about sending their descendants far away from parental protection (even if parents realized the economically unpleasant situation in Ukraine). Parents were also aware of possible problems connected with life in another country (and growing-up young adults were less aware of the uncertainties in the country of immigration as their view was often idealistically positive). However, the parental role was necessary because a visa for the purpose of study was required from parents at Consulate. Children mentioned that they were “tough” during household negotiations which sometimes caused tensions within the family unit. Alexander remembers it as follows:

Alexander: I decided that I will go to the Czech Republic. We talked about it with my father. My parents did not want me to study in the Czech Republic, but then I decided that I will arrive there on an admitting procedure. It was one month before the admitting procedure. (…) I always argued with my parents. Again, again and again I tried to persuade them. Why did they not want me to go? Here [in the Czech Republic] it is fine to study and it is quite bad to study in Ukraine recently. (…) I had the possibility [go to the Czech Republic] and I wanted to use it.⁷

Parents were against Alexander’s persuasion and they did not want to allow him to go so young (parents even threatened him with staying and studying in Ukraine if he is not willing to wait one year). The Ukrainian schooling, to which Alexander refers, is connected with the criticism of poor quality of education, often unpleasantly affected by corruption and its diploma is not recognized in other European countries. After schooling, as Alexander argues, is difficult to find employment in Ukraine (also due to corruption) and this led to the strong out-migration of young people. Therefore, education in the Czech Republic also secures a better perspective for seeking working opportunities and not necessarily in the Czech Republic but in the entire European Union.

Albina, a second participant, was in a different situation. Her parents were not persuaded that migration could be a good idea for their daughter but they did not argue firmly with Albina: Albina: I started to talk with my parents a lot [about studying abroad] and I wanted to be somewhere outside Ukraine. There are no possibilities [in Ukraine], no future, and I knew what was happening. (…) We also talked about Poland, but I was against it. It cost a lot. There is a son of my mother’s friend and he is paying about 80,000 Czech crowns for one semester. It is a lot of money. I said to mum that I will rather learn the Czech language and I will study hard. It is normal for me. It is better.⁸

Albina’s parents were very anxious about the geographic distance between them and their daughter and they were not sure about the accuracy of migration to the Czech Republic. Iryna, the third participant, was in the worst situation. Alexander and Albina have economically affluent parents (Alexander’s mother is a businesswoman, Albina’s parents are doctors) and they could provide finances for their descendants,⁹ but Iryna’s parents were divorced, her father did not care about her and mother worked in a low paid job as a mail person. Luckily for Iryna, her grandfather was in the Czech Republic and he decided to support her financially. According to the migration process, her mother was supportive on Iryna’s initiation:

Iryna:I began to talk about it with my mother. She actually wanted me to study in Germany, but I said to her that the Czech Republic is better for me. The Czech Republic is better and closer and I was many times in the Czech Republic. I know the Czech Republic. For me the Czech Republic is better.

Author:And your mother did not want you to go to the Czech Republic?

Iryna:She does not know. She also wanted to work in Germany, [so this is the reason for Germany].¹⁰

Another participant, Evdokia, mentioned that she discussed her intention with her parents to migrate and they were supportive. However, Evdokia did not provide any further information (she was shy and less talkative). She was partly persuaded by her cousin (Albina) about the benefits of migration and she had no desire to stay behind in West Ukraine due to an insufficient level of living standards. The last participant, Lara, wanted to experience “something more” than she could achieve in Dubno:

Lara: I wanted to go and my parents supported me. I had an opportunity from the Czech association to study in the Czech Republic and I wanted to use it. My parents agreed. (…) I will get more knowledge and prospective opportunities for my future [thanks to study in the Czech Republic]. There is also something more, like a better economic situation.¹¹

As parents of these young participants mentioned in interviews, information mediated by their children was not familiar for them. That means most parents were not fully aware of the economic or cultural environment of the Czech Republic before the migration of their children. Ivan and Oksana, parents of Albina, remember it this way: We practically knew nothing about the Czech Republic. First, we traveled to Europe on the admitting procedure for our daughter. After that, we understood more about the Czech Republic, especially when we needed to submit the documents. We recognized the actions of the state. We compared it with Ukraine and since then we like many things in the Czech Republic. People live easier than in Ukraine.¹² Even if migration into the Czech Republic has a long tradition and Albina´s parents said they knew about the strong emigration outflow from Ukraine into the Czech Republic, or the European Union respectively, they were never interested in it.

Another parent, Natasha, mother of Iryna, said that she did not know how life “is going in the Czech Republic” before the migration of her daughter. To be more specific, Natasha mentioned that she did not know that prices for food in the Czech Republic and Ukraine are almost on the same level, but that the minimum wage is about seven times higher in the Czech Republic than in Ukraine.

It was mainly due to the limited experience of parents with the Czech Republic causing that objectives of the five participants were developed differently than those of their parents. Social world predominantly defined by ties within a region, supply of experiences and personal understandings are strong limitations for parents (see Bonizzoni 2009; Holdsworth 2013; Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994; Kirova 2010; Kofman 2012, Moskal and Tyrrell 2016; Massey et al. 1987; Orellana et al. 2001; Sime, Fox, and Pietka 2010). On the contrary, young participants aspirations are connected with gaining specific experiences, knowledge and the use of opportunities (Huijsmans 2015; Punch 2002) which making them independent from parents. Growing-up young adults experienced a differentiated world and wanted to realize their own separate objectives because they believe that their goals could not be attained locally and opportunities exist elsewhere. Their life aspiration is translated into migratory aspirations (De Haas 2021). Parents often emphasize the tendencies to maintain local lives, but their descendants want to use their choices and dispositions to pursue possibilities (ibid.).

According to independent child migrants from Latin America and Africa, children or adolescents from these continents are not fully aware of conditions in the country of immigration before movement and their social agency is not based on direct experience with destination (Bonizzoni and Leonini 2013). This is a significant point, because it introduces limitation to self-capabilities and decisions (for instance Orellana et al. 2001). However, the situation of Ukrainian participants in this research provides a different view.

Participants migrated as the “first migrants” in the Czech Republic and parents stayed in the country of origin. Reunification is refused from the parental side even if growing-up young adults try to persuade their parents about the benefits of reunification. Parents are still sedentarily attached to their locality, are economically active in Ukraine and often work in well-paid positions (and are able to send reverse remittances of about 180 euro per month). They also need to take care of their own older parents in Ukraine (see Mazzucato and Schans 2011 for similar constraints in the reunification process). Growing-up young adults migrated alone and they do not know how long they will live apart from parents, but reunification is just prediction (Dreby and Adkins 2011) and transnational ties become meaningful. However, a privileged class background and reverse remittances, together with educational and working expectancies, mean that only upward mobility is expected by both parents and participants.

Conclusion and discussion

Earlier young people were simply unrecognized (Hardman 2001; Sime 2017) and later seen as “burdens” (for instance Fog-Olwig 2012, 941–942). The adult-centric perspective persisted and only adults were seen as decision-makers concerning migration (Fresnoza-Flot and Itaru 2015; see also Baldassar and Merla 2014; Boccagni 2013; Kirova 2010; Moskal and Tyrrell 2016). Although young people´s perspective and positionality was then brought into migration studies and they became studied as family members participating in family decision-making processes about migration, their social agency is still limited. Within the concept of the transnational family, young people could hinder migration or they could have influence on the timing, the moving or staying, but they are not studied as family members capable of triggering their own migration (see Bhapha 2016; Seeberg and Goździak 2016).

The perspective of “independent child migrants” or “unaccompanied minors” is different. Parents could send them as part of a family strategy but children could also neglect negotiations with parents and migrate alone (Whitehead, Hashim, and Iversen 2007) as a result of conflict (Iversen 2002) or different objectives (Thorsen 2005). However, this process is studied in the context of South-to-North migration and the aim of this article is East-to-West migration, from Ukraine to the Czech Republic respectively.

The objectives of participants in this study are different than those of parents and this is mainly due to a disparate mindset. The parental social world is mainly dominated by more sedentary ties to regions and the more ascriptive system from the Soviet era, but young participants have a meritocratic perspective and migratory aspirations which are incompatible with parental objectives. Their life aspiration is shifted into migratory ambitions and, while parents maintain local lives, participants want to pursue their possibilities for the freedom of movement.

This article demonstrates the intergenerational perspective in Western Ukraine and introduced impact of short-term stays in the country of destination on the decision-making process of participants. However, while young participants themselves stressed the repercussions of these stays, it is meaningful – aside from meritocratic principles – that there is a pro-western geopolitical orientation in Western Ukraine after 1991 and a strong emigration propensity in this region.

There are some empirical and theoretical limitations of this research. First, it was not possible to study the negotiations between parents and participants in households. Second, both kinship and peer relations contributed to the success in migration (in the case of Iryna, at least), but these influences are neglected in this article because emphasized is the significance of the nuclear family. Third, the research relied significantly on narratives. And finally, the opportunities to conduct interviews with parents were limited.

Geolocation information

Dubno (Ukraine): Latitude: 50.4169, longitude: 25.7343

Rivne (Ukraine): latitude 50.619900, longitude 26.251617

Lutsk (Ukraine): Latitude: 50.7593, longitude: 25.3424.

Kvasyliv (Ukraine): Latitude 50.55736, longitude 26.26265

Uničov (Czech Republic): Latitude 49.7709133, longitude 17.1214423

Rychnov nad Kněžnou (Czech Republic): Latitude 50.165965, longitude 16.277684

Šumperk (Czech Republic): Latitude 49.977841, longitude 16.971775

Disclosure statements

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Luděk Jirka

Luděk Jirka received his Ph.D. at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. He studied at Bielefeld University in Germany and University of California, Los Angeles. He is assistant professor at the Department of Studies in Culture and Religion, Faculty of Education, University of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic. His research area is migration and ethnicity.

Notes

1. This article was finished before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine (February 2022).

2. In addition, adults are seen as rationalistic or pragmatic and this view was transferred on their children (criticized by Fresnoza-Flot and Nagasaka 2015b; Mazzucato and Schans 2011; Sørensen and Maria Vammen 2014).

3. They hardly understand decision of parents due their age (Bonizzoni 2009).

4. Data was mostly gathered during years 2013–2017 but after 2017 more data were needed.

5. According to data, in 2017 about 33 682 Ukrainians were in the Czech Republic with long-term stay (over 90 days) and in school year 2017/2018 about 3 145 foreigners studied high schools (data used from the CSO 2018). However, data about student migration in the Czech Republic is weak and mostly connected with university students (Leontiyeva and Kopecká 2018).

6. Participant M.S., b. 1996, Uničov, Czech Republic, 23.2.2015.

7. Participant Alexander, b. 2000, Uničov, Czech Republic, 18.8.2017.

8. She referred to war in Eastern Ukraine and following economic crisis. Participant Albina, b. 1996, Uničov, Czech Republic, 23.2.2015.

9. Long-term visa for the purpose of studying could be achieved only after proving sufficient amount of money on bank account. This is often the main constraint for possible students.

10. Participant Iryna, b. 1998, Dubno, Ukraine, 9.7.2013.

11. Participant Albina, b. 1996, Uničov, Czech Republic, 27.3.2019.

12. Participants Oksana and Ivan, b. 1964 and b. 1966, Dubno, Ukraine, 10.4.2016.