Privilege and youth migration

Polarised employment patterns of youth mobility workers in London

Bibliographic Data

ID3632555
AuthorsElsa Oommen (0000-0003-4481-560X, University of Warwick, corresponding author), Elsa T Oommen
Year2021
Volume47
Issue5
Pages1119-1135
Publication date2021-04-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Community (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-9586 • E-ISSN: 1469-9451
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1369183x.2019.1583094
OpenAlexW2917889347
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited41

This article provides an analysis of privilege in the context of temporary youth migration in the United Kingdom. In this paper, I focus on the employment patterns of young migrants on the bilateral Youth Mobility Scheme (YMS) to the UK, who base themselves in London for a two-year period of ‘work’ and ‘play’. Young migrants on similar working holidaymaker schemes are mostly understood as ‘sojourners’ in the scholarship, with a ‘taken for granted’ approach on their privileged positionality. This article focusses on YMS migrants’ employment patterns and the disparate access to mobilities, asking how privilege is drawn from both state's structuring of the scheme, and through localised interactions in London. My findings point to polarising of employment patterns among YMS participants based on first language, ‘race’, gender, nationality and historic-colonial links to Britain. The paper contributes to our knowledge of privilege in understanding temporary migration, which is increasingly charted through bilateral and quota-based schemes

Geography · Immigration · Mobilities · Nationality · Political science · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Aging, and Tourism Studies · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy