WHEN THE ERAMUS GENERATION MEETS THE PRECARIOUS GENERATION. THE TRANSNATIONAL MOBILITY OF ITALIAN AND SPANISH YOUTH

One of the main achievement of the European integration process is the making of a transnational space where European citizens can freely circulate. Mobility promotes a kind of bottom-up, or horizontal europeanization, and the spread of cross-national practices. It also contributes to a widening in the individual and relational resources available to youth to carry out their professional and personal life projects. The so called Erasmus Generation, defines young peoples socialized to a transnational cultural humus and highly identified with Europe. Indeed, in the current context of economic crisis, mobility is more and more experienced by highly skilled youth from Southern European countries, as individual strategies to deal with precariousness, unemployments, under-qualified jobs. As a result, mobility can be seen as an obligation, more than a choice, and as a form of brain drain from Southern to Central and Northern European countries, more that a carrier of horizontal europeanization. The article, focusing on Italian and Spanish youth, explore the interconnection between Erasmus Generation and Precarious Generation, and analyzes causes and effect of transnational mobility experienced by highly skilled youth, on the micro and macro social level and on the political level.