Drivers of Migration: The Role of Aspirations, Capabilities, and Perceptions

Elena Ambrosetti , La Sapienza, University of Rome
Cecilia Fortunato , Sapienza Università di Roma
Sara Miccoli , Sapienza University of Rome
Donatella Strangio, Sapienza University of Rome

The aim of this paper is to disentangle the drivers of migration to Europe as narrated by migrants and stakeholders working on the field of migration. This research presents new original insights on migrations drivers. It builds on the fieldwork implemented within Perceptions, a multidisciplinary research project funded by the EU. We use mixed methods exploiting qualitative and quantitative surveys addressing migrants and stakeholders’ perceptions of migration and Europe, in twelve research sites: Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Germany, UK and Belgium. The quantitative survey addressed to stakeholders was lead during fall 2020. Qualitative interviews and focus groups with migrants and stakeholders were lead during winter and spring of 2021. Preliminary results show that stakeholders considered external factors (e.g. violence, different political situations, different levels of opportunity, etc.) and general negative conditions in the country of origin (e.g. war, a weak economy, etc.) to be the main drivers of migration. Practitioners from countries defined as transit countries (Algeria, Egypt, and Tunisia) considered person-specific threats in the country of origin (such as religious persecution, etc.) to be especially important in motivating migration. From the point of view of migrants, the main drivers of migration are usually multiple reasons relating to different life spheres that coexist in different difficult contexts. According to the aspirations-capabilities framework, the findings of qualitative interviews with migrants show that drivers of migration are always multifaceted and interdependent and that there is never a single narrative behind the decision to migrate.

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 Presented in Session 66. Drivers of international migration