The lure of London: a comparative study of recent graduate migration from Germany, Italy and Latvia

This paper is explicitly comparative and examines the motivations and characteristics of the recent migration to the UK of three highly educated young-adult national groups – from Germany, Italy and Latvia. The research on which the paper is based draws on four doctoral theses which have focused, wholly or in part, on the emigration of graduates to the UK, mainly the London area. Theoretically the paper links to core-periphery dynamics within Europe and to the trope of ‘crisis’ – economic, structural and personal – to help to explain the many reasons why young graduates from these three countries migrate to the UK. Each of the three nationalities represents a different regional economic and geopolitical positioning within Europe. German graduates are moving from one economically powerful European core country to another, traversing shallow economic and cultural boundaries. Italian graduates migrate from a relatively peripheral Southern European country where, especially in Southern Italy, the employment and career prospects for young educated people have long been difficult and have become more so with the recent crisis. They find opportunities in the economically and culturally dynamic London region which are unavailable to them in Italy. Latvian graduates depart from a different European periphery, the Eastern one, post-socialist and post-Soviet; like the Italians, economic motives largely dictate their moves whereas, for the Germans, migration is more related to lifestyle, life-stage, and the wish to experience living in a large, multicultural and cosmopolitan city. Based on 125 in-depth interviews, the paper teases out the main narrative differences and similarities between the three groups.