Youth transitions in an era of permacrisis : the case of Europeans in post-Brexit Britain

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McCollum, David and Botterill, Katherine and Sime, Daniela and Sojka, Bozena (2026) Youth transitions in an era of permacrisis : the case of Europeans in post-Brexit Britain. Population, Space and Place, 32 (5). e70286. ISSN 1544-8444 (https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.70286)

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Abstract

The protracted Brexit process had negative practical and emotional consequences for the millions of Europeans who reside in Britain. The analysis presented in this paper elucidates the circumstances, experiences and perspectives specifically of young Europeans, achieved through interrogation of data from the 2021 Census of England and Wales and a 2023-24 novel, longitudinal survey of 1,490 young Europeans. The findings reveal considerable heterogeneity within this cohort, but widespread concerns about employment transitions, housing and mental health. Drawing on concepts of permacrisis and ‘modes of uncertainty’ (Anderson et al, 2020), the research demonstrates how challenges in specific life domains are experienced and have the cumulative effects of significantly shaping how young people live with and in permacrisis. As such, the paper argues for nuanced framings of the European youth migrant experience beyond a precarity-privilege binary and calls for greater emphasis on the individual, embodied experiences of permacrisis in young people’s lives.

ORCID iDs

McCollum, David, Botterill, Katherine, Sime, Daniela ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3207-5456 and Sojka, Bozena ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4045-9380;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)