Beyond Borders: Youth Migration, Inequality, and Social Change

Dear Colleagues,

Young people constitute a significant and expanding portion of the global migrant population. However, migration and recent mobility theories seldom consider age and life stage. To fill this gap, this Special Issue aims to highlight mobility among young people. By exploring youth mobility within and across borders worldwide, this collection of articles seeks to offer a comprehensive understanding of young people’s aspirations, imaginaries, and concrete mobility experiences, including in the analysis both those who stay and those who move, those who arrive at new locations, and those who return either with new perspectives or unfulfilled dreams.

Young people, generally defined as those aged 15-24, made up around 11 to 12 per cent of the global international migrant population between 2013 and 2020, although figures vary slightly depending on the source, definition, and region of origin. The share of child and youth migrants of African and Latin American origin is, for example, closer to 25 and 15 per cent (www.migrationdata.portal.org). By the end of 2024, 48.8 million children were displaced globally due to conflict and violence, making up approximately 40 per cent of the world’s displaced persons (of which two-thirds were displaced within their own countries) (https://www.unhcr.org/hk/en/unaccompanied-children).

Young people are a highly mobile group, more inclined to migrate than older individuals. Their migration trajectories are driven by complex factors, including the pursuit of better educational opportunities and livelihoods, personal growth, and family formation, but also escape from poverty, conflict, forced recruitment by armies, rebel groups and criminal gangs, gender- or family-based violence, and environmental disasters caused by climate change (Franco Gavonel 2022, Tchermalykh & Millán, Mazzucato & Ogden 2025).

Against this background, existing youth migration research tends to focus on situations of vulnerability and crisis, including issues of child labour, risks related to ‘unaccompanied’ trajectories, and various forms of force at play, such as human trafficking—themes that no matter their importance tend to overlook the agency and ingenuity young people develop to overcome obstacles imposed by social control structures and migration governance at national and international levels (Schapendonk et al. 2020, Franck and Turner 2025). As migration governance extends across new territories and policy domains and produces effects that reach well beyond their immediate and intended policy outcomes (Talleraas and Vammen 2025), children and youth continue to move. Such mobility may form part of family or household livelihood strategies, but may also arise spontaneously when an opportunity presents itself.

Youth migration is often shaped by demographic changes related to ‘developments’ in their communities, regions, or countries of origin, especially where high fertility rates result in an overall youthful population (Kefale & Gebresenbet 2021). As noted by the World Bank, youth is a phase of transition (ideally) receptive to the future and new possibilities. However, this stage of young people’s lives is currently occurring amidst high levels of precarity and dispossession, governance failures, enduring age and gender inequalities, social exclusion, and increasing concerns about climate change (Hall 2022, McPherson 2024). In such circumstances, migration may be one of the few options available to transition from childhood to adulthood, introducing the need for a temporality lens (Mazzucato & Ogden op cit.) for understanding processes of what may become ‘transitional, reluctant, and uncertain becoming’ (Landau et al. 2025).

We invite scholars from the social sciences and humanities, including development and gender studies, to contribute to this Special Issue. We are particularly interested in articles that:

• Analyse particular case studies of youth mobility, for example, how young people navigate conditions that affect their transitions from adolescence to adulthood, their anticipated futures, and their aspirations in the face of environmental change, poverty, protracted conflicts, household negotiations, communal land disputes, and shifting livelihood strategies;
• Consider the level of force behind autonomous youth migration decision-making;
• Introduce theoretical frameworks adept at deconstructing existing perceptions and constructions of youth mobilities;
• Explore youth-sensitive and innovative methodologies (including participatory approaches and elements like social media usage).

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200 words summarising their intended contribution. Please send this document to the Guest Editors (nns@diis.dk) or to the Genealogy Editorial Office (genealogy@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

Literature

Franck, A.K & Turner, S. (2025). Refugees and preppers: Anticipatory practices in the face of uncertain futures. Migration Studies 13. https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnaf026

Franco Gavonel, M. (2022). Are young internal migrants ‘favourably’ selected? Evidence from four developing countries. Oxford Development Studies, 51(2), 97–125.

Hall, S. (2022). Youth Migration and Development: A New Lens for Critical Times. KNOMAD, Washington D.C., The World Bank Group.

Kefale, A. & Gebresenbet, F. (Eds.) (2021) Youth on the Move. London, Hurst and Co.

Landau, L.; Lori, N. & McNevin, A. (2025) Zombies, Miracles, and Memory: Towards a Research Agenda on Mobility, Temporality, and Political Possibility. Geopolitics, 1-24. 

Mazzucato, V. & Ogden L. J. (2025) Transnational youth mobility through trajectories and temporalities. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 51 (6): 1449.

McPherson, C. (2025) Haunted Aspirations and Youth Transitions in the Contemporary Context. Journal of Applied Youth Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43151-025-00161-6

Schapendonk, J.; van Liempt, I.; Schwarz, I & Steel, G. (2020) Re-routing migration geographies: Migrants, trajectories and mobility regimes, Geoforum 116: 211-216.

Talleraas, C. & Vammen I. M. S. (2025). The Rippling Effects of European Migration Governance in Africa: A Critical Research Agenda and Analytical Approach. International Migration Review, 1-25, https://doi.org/10.1177/01979183251359170

Tchermalykh, N. and Millán, E. F. (2024) Introduction to Special Issue: New Anthropological Perspectives on Children and Youth on the Move. Anthropology in Action 31 (1): 1-8.

Dr. Ninna Nyberg-Sørensen
Dr. Tekalign Ayalew Mengiste
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Genealogy is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• youth mobility
• youth transitions
• youth aspirations
• trajectories
• uncertainties
• border experiences