The economic crisis and the Southern European migration model

Abstract

Many scholars from social sciences have considered Southern Europe, referring to Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece, an area of common features with regard to political integration into the European Union, development of the welfare state and demographic and migration evolution, among other issues. The aim of this chapter is to draw attention to the recent demographic and migration history of Southern Europe, in order to offer an interpretation of the processes that have taken place since the turn of the century, differentiating the stage of economic growth (2001-2007) and the economic and financial crisis that followed (2008-2014). To this end population balance, natural change, fertility indicators, demo-graphic structure, emigration and immigration data are analyzed, trying to high-light the most important features linking the profiles of those countries and set-ting them apart from Eastern, Western and Northern Europe, exemplified in the cases of France and Germany and the United Kingdom and Sweden, respectively. The chapter aims to depict the relations between socio-demographic and migration characteristics of the young Portuguese, Spaniards, Italians and Greeks as opposed to those from Western and Northern Europe, offering a cluster analysis of the 2011 Census data on unemployment, tertiary education and expatriation. This analysis displays socio-demographic features that may explain the importance of the recent emigration of young adults and, especially, of those with tertiary education from Southern to Western and Northern Europe, as well as to other labor destinations in the world.