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Are They Leaving Because of the Crisis? The Sociological Significance of Anomie as a Motivation for Migration

This article offers a sociological analysis of the migration motivations of highly skilled people who left Spain after 2008. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews, I map the role that the crisis played in highly skilled individuals’ migration narratives. Using the recently emerging migration flow between Spain and Norway as a point of departure, I analyse migration from one of the most crisis-stricken regions of Europe to one of the least affected regions. This analysis establishes that the migrants’ educational and occupational resources help to protect them from the threat of unemployment. Their reluctance to use the crisis as a reason to leave is further analysed as part of their symbolic and social boundary work. The article concludes that what Durkheim conceptualized as anomie provides an apt label for the particular set of societal problems cited by people who migrated from Spain after 2008.