‘ It’s Time For Us To Fly ’: Proactive Resilience to Overcome Precariousness – Post-Pandemic Opportunities for Mobility Among Spanish Postgraduates

Abstract

Spain’s young people are among the most highly trained in the European Union. But despite their qualifications, they face many labour market barriers to obtaining gainful employment. The pandemic has had a strong impact in the country, whose shortage of professional opportunities for young postgraduates is increasingly forcing them to take charge of their lives by practicing mobility to work abroad. Drawing from a qualitative study of 50 Spanish postgraduates with previous experiences of mobility, this article contributes to the existing literature on the geography of young people by examining the concept of ‘proactive resilience’ to show how precariousness obliges them to move, in order to escape vulnerability in search of opportunities to improve their professional lives. I argue that proactive resilience is both a part and a product of precariousness and acts as an engine that pushes young postgraduates to practice mobility, depending on their circumstances: (a) proactive resilience to seek opportunities to work abroad according to their level of training; (b) proactive resilience to move with the support of scholarships to continue training, or after passing competitive examinations. The conclusions highlight the contribution of the article, summarizing the analysis and answering the research questions. Proactive resilience has not previously been researched in this manner, and the findings contribute to refining the framework of post-pandemic youth mobility, as well as suggesting new avenues for future research.

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the map of human mobility around the world, particularly the mobility trajectories of young people (Panarese & Azzarita, 2021; Porter et al., 2022). The negative impact of the health crisis aggravated the imbalances that have weighed down European economies for decades, and Spain is no exception: high unemployment of a structural nature, with particular incidence among young people, and marked job insecurity, which pushes them towards mobility abroad (Arce, 2021; Marcu, 2021; Van Mol, 2016).

Taking this matter into account, which affects the lives of young people and society as a whole, the article analyses labour precarity and its linkage to resilience and mobility among young Spanish postgraduates. Drawing from a qualitative study of 50 Spanish postgraduates with previous experiences of mobility, the contribution of this article is to examine the concept of ‘proactive resilience’, to analyse how precariousness is forcing this group to move in order to ‘escape’ vulnerability in search of opportunities to improve their professional lives. While ‘resilience’ represents a person’s ability to recover from difficulties, adapt to change and stressful situations, and emerge stronger from them (Black & Walsh, 2021; Cairns & Smith, 2011; Murray, 2010), in the framework of this research, ‘proactive resilience’ refers to the ability of young postgraduates to take control of their lives through mobility-related decisions and actions, without waiting for events to occur that would change their professional situations. I interpret proactive resilience as an attitude that people may adopt to find work abroad, with direct implications for their personal lives, while remaining critical of the situation they experience in their home country.

It is worth noting that Spain has a youth unemployment rate of 26.6% (Active Population Survey, INE, 2024), while the global average stands at 13% according to the most recent data from the International Labour Organization (ILO, 2024). This gap highlights a notable disparity in the access of young Spanish people to the labour market. While the global average shows a downward trend in youth unemployment, Spain continues to report far higher figures (ILO, 2024). This raises significant concerns about the capacity of the Spanish labour market to integrate young people.

Keeping this reality in mind, the paper addresses two interlinked questions: What accounts for this extreme precariousness among postgraduates in Spain, meaning that despite their qualifications they consider moving abroad? And how can we explain their ‘proactive resilience’, which has emerged in the context of the crisis currently troubling Europe and Spain?

I argue that resilience as a proactive attitude is both a part and a product of labour precariousness and acts as an engine that pushes Spanish postgraduates to create mobility opportunities, depending on their circumstances. In this respect, the article follows the approach of Black and Walsh (2021, p. 428), who suggest that ‘young people’s imagined futures and the contexts which frame and shape them are subject to complex spatio-temporal dynamics’, covering their immediate professional future as well the global context that influences their lives. The paper also acknowledges the approach of Murray (2010), who argues that ‘young people proactively engage in resisting offending’ (p. 116).

This research is based on two essential hypotheses: (1) an adequate supply of careers in Spain would ease precariousness among young postgraduates, who would have the opportunity to find work suited to their qualifications despite their lack of initial experience. As a result, they would realise their potential and contribute to national socio-economic progress; and (2) young postgraduates are using their capacity for ‘proactive resilience’ to change their perceptions about their search for work. They are taking advantage of their previous mobility experiences during their education (Erasmus programmes, exchanges; Cairns, 2018; Cuzzocrea & Cairns, 2020; Schnepf & Colagrossi, 2020; Wilson, 2011) and, far from being satisfied with working below their level of qualification (Maguire, 2010), they are expressing discontent and showing proactive resilience by making mobility arrangements to work abroad (King & Williams, 2018; Marcu, 2019).

Through this research, I highlight how ‘proactive resilience’ represents a characteristic of Spanish postgraduates in these post-pandemic times. Through their attitude, the members of this group aspire to show society their ability to overcome precariousness, make decisions and practice mobility, considering their desire to return as a strategic decision that will contribute significantly to the future success and growth of their country.

Moreover, I believe that this research offers insight into the current understanding of young people and their change-making attitude toward professional precariousness, in addition to inviting researchers to contribute to future studies investigating how proactive resilience is linked to mobility among young people in the post-pandemic context.

After providing a conceptual discussion about the linkage between precariousness, proactive resilience and mobility, and a brief Spanish context of young postgraduates’ unemployment, I explain the methodology used. I then focus the analysis on Spanish postgraduates, examining how young people use their proactive resilience to activate their mobility process abroad, as a route to escape the crisis. The conclusions highlight the contribution of the article, summarizing the analysis and answering the research questions. They emphasize the ‘voice’ of postgraduates, who are appealing to Spanish actors and politicians to help offer young people in their country stability in line with their qualifications.

Connecting ‘Proactive Resilience’ to Precariousness Through Mobility Abroad in Post-Pandemic Times

The current literature on mobility studies and postgraduates, their life trajectories and professional precariousness helps us to understand the process and, above all, how the young people themselves experience and interpret it, depending on the various contexts in which they live and practice mobility overseas to improve their lives (Black & Walsh, 2019; Brooks, 2018a; Bynner 2001; Cairns, 2022; Cuzzocrea & Mandich, 2016.

Taking this extensive literature as a starting point, and keeping in mind the new paradigm of mobility and the ‘mobility turn’ (Sheller & Urry, 2006), according to which people are continuously (both physically and virtually) on the move, this paper uses a case study of young Spanish postgraduates to advance knowledge and connect proactive resilience to precariousness, by examining their international mobility in search of work suited to their qualifications.

While the literature on precariousness is widely studied in relation to young people practicing post-pandemic mobility (Chesters, 2024;MacDonald et al., 2023; Pun et al., 2024; Ryabov, in press), the concept of ‘proactive resilience’ has not yet been studied. Consequently, for this research, I specifically propose the concept of ‘proactive resilience’ among young people during the post-pandemic crisis, arguing that they are using it as a way to build their own mobility schemes, whether alone or via applications and exams that help them to move forward and escape precariousness.

The literature analyses precariousness as an unstable and insecure labour relationship and theorizes about precarious work, exploring the flexibilization of labour markets, changes in labour relations, employment characterized by low wages, and difficult working conditions (e.g., short-term contracts), especially in the case of mobile young people (Lewis Dwyer & Hodkinson, 2015; Peck & Tickell, 2002; Smith, 2016). It has been extensively acknowledged that the precariousness of young people represents a state of vulnerability characterized by uncertainty about the future, economic instability and lack of professional prospects in their home country (Carmo et al., 2014; Chacko, 2020; Yeung & Yang, 2020). Conceptualizing the transition of young people into the labour market, (Yeung & Yang, 2020, p. 9) highlight that ‘entry into the labour market is a critical marker of an individual’s transition into adulthood and can have long-term socioeconomic ramifications for one’s life trajectory’. In turn (Xenos et al., 2007, p. 151) note that ‘it is difficult for young postgraduates to transition into other important events, such as marriage, parenthood, or home ownership’. This is closely linked with mobility in search of new opportunities. For instance, Marcu (2019) examines the precarious work experiences of young people in relation to their mobility. As the author notes, young people ‘use their resilience to practice mobility abroad’ in search of opportunities, highlighting their frustration, but also their resilience and resistance while they are ‘surfing in the labyrinth of temporality, between the fulfilment of objectives and the uncertainty of relocation’ (Marcu, 2019, p. 922).

Other authors have specifically worked on the concept of resilience linked to international youth mobility (Nursay-Bray et al., 2022; Porcelli et al., 2014; Ungar, 2011). For instance, Jeffrey (2013) connects youth resilience to the concept of ‘agency’ as a way to ‘get ahead’ (p. 146) in a troubled world, overcoming precariousness. In turn, Cuzzocrea and Mandich (2016, p. 552) link youth agency to their future mobility, considering that ‘agency and the future are deeply intertwined’. Van Geel and Mazzucato (2021) investigate how young people who practice mobility experience their resilience at the educational level, and question whether resilience is an attribute or a process. Gallagher et al. (2017) propose the concept of ‘creative resilience’, which helps young people to survive and build resistance strategies for application in the real world. Against the backdrop of the pandemic, the concept began to gain more meaning, and youth behaviour is now increasingly analysed in relation to the concept of resilience. For example, Marcu (2021) carried out a specific study on the mobility of Romanians to Spain during the pandemic, linking resilience to mobility and the return of young people to their country of origin. Gomes et al. (2021), meanwhile, analysed the experiences of young people in relation to resilience, understood as a relational and collective quality. In fact, during the last 2 to 3 years, the authors who have conceptualized ‘resilience’ in the context of the survival and mobility of young people seeking an escape route from precariousness and poverty have called on institutions to pay attention and develop policies and programmes to address resilience and develop young people’s sense of belonging and connection in the face of the challenges of the pandemic (Eichhorst & Portela, 2022; O’Grady & Shaw, 2023).

Contrasting with the ‘passive resilience’ (Oliver et al., 2006; Zolkoski & Bullock, 2012) involved in adjusting to and withstanding the crisis by adapting to the new circumstances and continuing to endure the harsh economic reality of their country, ‘proactive resilience’– as a concern -represents an advance as postgraduates accept their reality and act in response to feeling ignored and even offended by the Spanish labour market’s exclusionary attitude towards them (Marcu, 2024). ‘Proactive resilience’ emerges as a concept that arises from both precariousness and job insecurity, in the post-pandemic times, and which may help postgraduates to overcome adverse situations, specifically lack of work, and to achieve their mobility goals in terms of escaping their lived reality. Although this mobility is not imagined but real and organized as an objective to be achieved, Cuzzocrea and Mandich (2016, p. 554) rightly note that it is ‘impossible to ignore the important role that [imagined] mobility has in looking towards the future’.

In this context, mobility and ‘proactive resilience’ can be interpreted not only as an intention (Cairns & Smith, 2011), but as a reality for young people oriented towards the present and future (Cairns, 2022; Sools et al., 2022), given the significant precariousness of the Spanish labour market. This is highly relevant for young postgraduates with previous mobility experience, as the literature shows. Using the case of Portuguese graduates, Cairns (2014) argues that mobility represents a decisive step to achieve professional and career goals. Moreover, in precarious contexts, postgraduate mobility becomes more intense and arduous (Smith, 2016). For example, the EU-sponsored Erasmus higher education student exchange programme launched a new generation of mobile European youth who experience ‘culture shock’ not only due to the new life experiences, but also to the lack of resources during their stays (Krzaklewska & Skórska, 2013). As is known, over the last 25 years, the number of highly trained doctoral researchers and pre- and post-doctoral fellows visiting European universities has grown. Often, they live in situations of adversity due to lack of funds, since they study and/or work precariously, often in difficult conditions with few resources, in specific labour niches that have been affected in recent years by the pandemic (Cairns, 2022;Ho et al., 2021). For instance, MacDonald et al. (2023) analyse how the pandemic has deepened inequality and intensified precarity among the youth, while Sools et al. (2022) take a further step and examine how young adults in different societal contexts depict the impact of a common crisis on their own and their societies’ futures.

In this framework, the concept of ‘proactive resilience’ enriches the existing theoretical framework concerning the link between precariousness and mobility in the post-pandemic times.

Young Postgraduates and Unemployment: The Post-Pandemic Spanish Context

The difficult labour market situation for young Spanish people worsened during the 2008 economic crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to aggravating the precarious circumstances that already existed. Since then, the situation has been exacerbated by the serious economic consequences of the crisis caused by the current war at the gates of the European Union. In this context, university and post-university training in Spain is far from being in line with labour demand. Data from the National Employment Institute (INE) show that unemployment among those aged under 25 exceeds 26.6%, more than double the EU average. While INE data show that only 20% of young postgraduates are unemployed, the reality is that 60% are working in the segmented market, below their level of qualifications.

In 2021, as a response to the pandemic, the Spanish government launched the ‘Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan’, stressing that young people must come first (p. 3) and must be offered job opportunities in new professions and specializations suited to their needs and potential, especially in areas suffering from brain drain (p. 6; Gobierno de España [Spanish Government], 2021). Nonetheless, 2 years after the plan was published, young university postgraduates in Spain were still suffering high levels of unemployment. At the end of 2023, the country’s youth unemployment rate (among those up to 29 years old) was the highest in the EU at 40.1%, almost 10 points higher than the previous year (30.5%). Young postgraduates stand out in this regard because they struggle to find employment to match their high levels of qualifications. At 45% of the total, this age group is the most likely to be working under a temporary contract. Meanwhile, only 55% of this group were offered the ‘ERTE’ (Record of Temporary Employment Regulation) furlough mechanism implemented during the pandemic, under which a company is obliged to re-establish the pre-existing contractual conditions of employees subject to the temporary reduction of hours and pay once the ERTE period has ended (Arce, 2021).

There is a huge mismatch between supply and demand for university and post-university qualifications in Spain, which Eurostat (2023) puts at 150,000 jobs. In particular, 31 degrees are classified as resulting in especially high levels of unemployment (above 10%), including conservation and restoration (25.8%), philosophy and literature (18.4%) and social sciences (17.5%; INE, 2025).

One of the structural problems for the labour market in Spain is hence its inability to absorb qualified people, meaning they end up in jobs for which they are overqualified (Report on Youth Labour Market, 2024). This anomaly represents an added public cost, since young people’s work and training potential is not valued accordingly. As a consequence, it is logical young people feel frustrated, as improved educational achievement has not translated into higher-quality employment. In fact, although people with university degrees do have better living conditions than those without, in Spain the economic benefit of acquiring institutionalized cultural capital (university degrees and similar achievements) is much lower than in countries like Germany and the United States (Grau-Grau, 2022). For this reason, in some sectors – such as medical, social sciences, and the humanities – competition becomes tougher than in others. Against this backdrop, both young postgraduate students who have completed these degrees and those in other sectors like healthcare are failing to find job opportunities in Spain. As a result, they are urgently seeking ways to escape their precarious niches through mobility abroad.

Methodology

I used qualitative methodology with semi-structured in-depth interviews. Research approval was granted in respect of the project that I coordinate, through the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain. Between July 2022 and January 2023, I conducted 50 in-depth interviews with 27 men and 23 women aged between 22 and 29 years old, in Madrid, Barcelona, Murcia and Zaragoza. The participants were Spanish postgraduates in social sciences (10), translation (5), geopolitics (8), human geography (9), international relations (7), history of art (4) and medicine (7).

The sample selection was diverse, since the students were drawn from different Spanish universities and fields of study. I initially selected five postgraduates who were doing research internships at the Spanish Scientific Research Council, and through them, I used the snow-ball technique. This led to interviewing medical postgraduates as well. It is worth noting the high level of participation among these young people and their eagerness to tell me their life stories, almost as a cathartic process. It was easy to find young participants through former research fellows. The research caught their attention and within a few days I had compiled a list of young people interested in sharing their experiences, plans for the future and desire to change their lives through professional mobility abroad.

The sample saturation point occurred when other elements stopped appearing after a wide range of responses had been covered, and the interviewees were offering information with similar content.

At the time they were interviewed, 20 respondents were working at a level that matched their qualifications (albeit in very precarious conditions), while 20 respondents were overqualified for their positions. All were earning less than other adult workers performing the same functions. At the time of the interviews, 10 respondents were unemployed.

The semi-structured interviews lasted about 1 hr. In the first part, we discussed the interviewees’ backgrounds of the interviewees to detect previous mobility abroad through Erasmus scholarships, high school stays in the United States and the process of completing their Master’s and/or PhD studies. The interviews then focused on the concepts of precariousness and how respondents expressed and experienced it, the proactive resilience process, and how they interpreted that process in the context of their lives. Finally, the interviews covered their current mobility plans.

During the interview process, I noted an urge among the participants to make their voices heard and to express their discontent with the fact that at the end of their degrees and postgraduate training (master’s, and in six cases PhD studies) – some in the midst of a pandemic – they could not find a job that matched their level of education.

All recordings were fully transcribed and annotated with interview notes. These annotations concerned body language, actions, tone of voice and displayed emotions of participants. The analysis hence combined interview transcripts and observations (Merton, 2008). The interviews were conducted in Spanish and later translated into English, and coded and analysed using the qualitative analysis programme ATLAS.ti (version 7.0). The analysis of the information identified key relations between the data obtained and conclusions reached (Flick, 2014). All interviewees appear under pseudonyms to guarantee their anonymity.

In view of the considerable quantity of information, I used the thematic analysis approach. This is a useful method for examining the experiences of interviewees and their different perspectives as a decisive factor in the analysis (Grbich, 2007), ‘highlighting similarities and differences’ (Nowell et al., 2017, p. 3).

The use of qualitative methodology also enabled me to identify different profiles of young postgraduates, observe the urgency of their need to escape unemployment and the job niches they were inhabiting and, above all, express their disagreement with the precariousness they were experiencing after completing their studies in Spain.

Accordingly, two key themes are identified: (a) proactive resilience to move, seeking opportunities to work abroad according to their level of qualifications and (b) proactive resilience to move with the support of scholarships to continue training, or after passing competitive examinations.

As the author of the article, I am aware that other researchers may perceive the sample of 50 interviewees to be limited. However, as 50 respondents represents a significant sample size in qualitative research, the interviewees came from various fields of study and their discourses reached the point of saturation, as mentioned, the paper is nonetheless methodologically sound and maintains scientific rigour throughout. Consequently, the qualitative methodology used in this research is reflected in the coherence of the article’s argument (Nowell et al., 2017, p. 11).

Below, I provide a detailed analysis of how young Spanish postgraduates face precariousness in times of crisis and try to reinvent themselves, be proactively resilient and look for ways to escape the circumstances affecting their professional prospects.

Proactive Resilience to Move and Seek Opportunities to Work Abroad Suited to Levels of Qualification

This section analyses mobility among young postgraduates looking for a job abroad that matches their level of training. In their interviews, the respondents note that they feel abandoned by the system and express their total discontentment with the professional ‘nightmare’ in which they are living. They interpret precariousness as the result of a lack of resources to survive. As well as the economic post-pandemic crisis affecting them, there is the difficulty of practicing the profession for which they were trained, which manifests itself as ‘a loss of identity’ as professionals. They feel compelled to work in job sectors that they are not familiar with, such as salespeople, advisers or supermarket shelf stackers.

A further significant issue is that respondents also identify precariousness in unpaid training scholarships as undergraduate and postgraduate students, pointing out that ‘… they are unpaid jobs. I’m really doing a job, even if I am new, and I am learning as I do it, but I am doing it to the best of my ability’.

The respondents express deep discomfort when describing their professional lives at the time of the interview. On the one hand, they note the inability to find adequate conditions for the work they do – salary is not commensurate with job performance and also fails to give them economic independence, as they remain forced to live with their parents. On the other hand, they highlight their significant workload, which is higher than the normal performance of a worker. They describe the long working days, which go beyond what is established by law and prevent them from enjoying free time: ‘They watch me, even when I go to the bathroom, and then they pay me a pittance’. Respondents also express their discomfort with the duties and tasks assigned to them below their level of qualification. Most importantly, they emphasize the need to have connections, which they do not have, to find a job in Spain that is in their sector and in line with their level of training. According to data from the latest Spanish General Social Survey by the Centre for Sociological Research (Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas [CIS]) in 2023, almost half of Spain’s young people (49.4%) found work as a result of personal contacts. The level is even higher if we include the 2.4% who found employment in the family business. According to the same source, the unofficial figures are even higher, reaching more than 70% of employment, since many job offers go unrecorded because they are not published on the market but are made directly at the request of management.

This is the case of Ana, who completed her master’s degree and is currently about to present her doctoral thesis in geopolitics, while doing various precarious jobs to survive.

I don’t have any connections. For me, precariousness in Spain is not having a contact. About all, now in post-pandemic … Not having anyone to get me a job. My battery has run out! So, let’s start over! I work in a fast food restaurant and as a shelf stacker in a supermarket. I am waiting for my doctoral viva, then I'll go. After finishing my degree in 2017, I emigrated to the United Kingdom, where I found a job within seven days as a dishwasher, while learning the language. Later, I went to Albania for 6 months to do an internship at the Embassy of Spain. Then, I came back and worked for a year in a company that paid me 500 euros for a full-time job for which the permanent staff were paid 1,500 euros. And here I am, about to get my doctorate. Being reborn. After much searching, I was offered a job in England at a security consultancy, and I accepted. (Ana, 29 years old, Madrid)

Ana’s story shows that she has been a mobile, precarious citizen throughout her life, but at the same time she displays proactive resilience: she is prepared to start over. Ana conceives of precariousness as a lack of support, what she calls ‘connections’, and exploitation at work, and she views proactive resilience as a struggle to get ahead that she describes as ‘rebirth’, and Gilligan (2000, p. 37) describes as ‘a capacity to do well despite adverse experience’.

For his part, Javier cannot hide his disappointment with the situation in Spain. He sees himself as having been directly expelled:

I am Spanish and my country is expelling me – it does not offer me anything worthy of the effort invested. After a lot of training, stays in the United Kingdom, the United States, in a digital and connected world, I feel totally helpless. I earn less than 800 euros a month and I have been on a scholarship for a year after my undergraduate degree and two master’s degrees. My job expectations are reduced to scholarship contracts or unpaid internships, which are very uncertain and hopeless and slow my personal development. I applied for a job in Germany, and they are offering me a contract there. I’ll be leaving in a month, I can’t wait to catch the plane. (Javier, 26 years old, Barcelona)

What emerges from Javier’s interview is that Spanish postgraduates are living in a discouraging reality. They have the tools for personal and intellectual development thanks to the digital world and the ease of accessing information, but they feel excluded from the system. Despite this, they are striving to build a professional reality that fits their level of training. They survive through proactive resilience and seek mobility abroad where their training and work are recognized. They make the leap from precariousness to proactive resilience, in order to overcome the poor working conditions in Spain. In this context, (pro)‘active resilience acknowledges young people as social actors who exercise their agency’, as Murray (2010, p. 128) notes.

This is the case of Sara, who has a master’s degree in history of art and whose interview connects precariousness and resilience in an illuminating way, as concepts that act as drivers for her to design her mobility:

I am precarious and resilient at the same time. I have been through traumatic situations, in my country, but also in Chile and the United States. Erasmus placements are good, but they are a very brief dream, before you return to the harsh reality. I had to quit my last job – I had a position as a telemarketer where I was exploited and where I had to deceive older people by selling credit cards. You must adapt, you have to constantly improve yourself. So, my plan is to work in the United Kingdom. I have a contact there, I will work in an archive, at least for a while to see how it goes, if it will be the same or better. (Sara, 23 years old, Murcia)

Sara’s experience highlights the poor working conditions postgraduates face, the precariousness and, above all, the professional exploitation. They are forced to resign their jobs in the face of both labour abuses and the working conditions imposed. For Sara, her tasks were ‘underpaid fraud’. Therefore, she looked for a job in the United Kingdom, taking a risk, since she did not know if her experience would improve, given her previous, gruelling experiences of mobility. This reality confirms what Tedeschi et al. (2022, p. 63) rightly note: ‘mobility can be conceived as a strategy of individuals to enhance benefits and increase resilience, although continuous commuting can be a time-consuming and tiring experience’.

The interviews with Sara and the other respondents in this section are distressing because all those looking for a position that matches their level of training say that they have had and/or continue to have heartbreaking labour trajectories after finishing their degrees, their master’s and, in six cases, their doctoral studies. In Sara’s case, her resilience is proactive and honest at the same time: she is capable of resigning from her job when she observed that she had to deceive the elderly in order to earn a ‘miserly’ salary. Notably, proactive resilience acts as a catalyst and pushes young people towards the search for new jobs, oriented towards the objectives pursued during their degree. Thus, as Rumgay (2004, p. 412) point out, ‘resilience emerges as resourcefulness in coping rather than invulnerability to hardships.’ By employing ‘proactive resilience’ to practice mobility abroad, young people are not only responding to changes but anticipating and leading them. This is not a matter of surrendering in the face of obstacles, but rather of facing them with determination and learning from challenges.

This, in fact, is what the interviewees are attempting to do, as they describe how they have applied proactive resilience through applications and competitive examinations to obtain scholarships and jobs both in the European Union and around the world, where they have been offered better opportunities to develop their skills in line with their level of education, as discussed below.

Proactive Resilience to Move With the Support of Scholarships to Continue Training, or After Passing Competitive Examinations

The internationalization and democratization of university – as confirmed by the extensive existing literature (Brooks, 2018a, 2018b; Brooks & Waters, 2011; Pantea, 2020; Wihlborg & Robson, 2018) – means that young people accumulate more and more years as students and their training process is extended, as well as the greater offer of professional training and undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. The heterogeneity of the study offer allows young people to undertake increasingly specific study routes that align more closely with their interests. Although, as this paper argues, not all degrees offer professional opportunities, with young people who postgraduate in the humanities or social sciences being an obvious example. Young people who postgraduate in these fields must stand out, have histories of excellence to be able to apply within the framework of scholarships in the ‘Fulbright’ category, or be able to pass competitive examinations or civil service examinations for careers as diplomats or officials, either in their own country or in foreign institutions. Those who succeed and pass these exams have also undergone arduous experiences of professional precariousness, and their resilience was and continues to be represented by a long period of waiting, preparation and struggle.

Proactive resilience, in this context, becomes a skill that consists of the ability to escape and not simply adjust to difficult situations. According to the interviewees, the resilience required by Spanish institutions can be reduced to phrases such as: ‘If something doesn't work, adapt and keep up’, which often means ‘shut up and wait’. ‘Hold on silently. Better times will come’. However, for those interviewed, proactive resilience means the opposite: the struggle to get out of the ‘lethargy of adaptation’ and move towards ‘the struggle through competition’.

This is what Alex, with a master’s degree in international relations, notes:

It’s time for me to fly. In a month I will go to the United States, because I won a Fulbright scholarship. That is where the resilient ones are, the fighters, because there the work is paid. I go where there are opportunities, I move for incentives. There is a serious problem in Spain. I finished my degree, a master's degree, and was offered nothing. You have to be resilient through proactive struggle. How did I hold on all this time? Struggling! I have been to the US before with a scholarship, when I was a teenager. I survived. After being unemployed for two years, I get out of precariousness by being resilient. And I move, because I have the tools to overcome the crisis! (Alex, 28 years old, Madrid)

Alex shows that through struggle and work one can get ahead, obtaining scholarships, in this case the Fulbright, for young graduates interested in doing Master’s or PhD programmes in American universities. These scholarships are sponsored by both the government of Spain, the U.S. government and private entities. As pointed out in this critical fragment, young Spaniards endure long periods of unemployment in order to develop a CV that allows them to apply for and obtain excellent scholarships in the global training and education system, fulfilling their dreams of mobility. To achieve these dreams, resilience begins to encompass resistance and endurance, as well as proactive resilience, which provides space to trace new prospects for future actions and motivations (Black & Walsh, 2021).

For Claudia,

Precariousness? To me, it means remaining in poverty. The thing is to improve, to have opportunities, a good salary, responsibilities, good contractual conditions. I jumped from scholarship to scholarship, and held jobs that didn't last more than two years. In Spain young people are not understood. Politicians think we should stick it out. And suffer. I wanted to be a researcher in my country. Impossible. Was I asking too much? I don’t get it. I am resilient, because resilience to me is acting, is keeping fighting and keeping standing. I took competitive examinations at the European Commission and I will go to Brussels. Finally, after withstanding adversity, studying and passing many life tests, I will live according with my training. (Claudia, 30 years old, Aragón)

Perpetual precariousness can thus produce proactive resilience, which the interviewees interpret as ‘resistance in the face of adversity’, the ability to overcome, through mobility in search of professional improvement and stability. Claudia believes that she is part of a ‘misunderstood’, ‘suffering’ generation that must fight, or ‘stand up’.

In this context, it is important to highlight that not all the interviewees were convinced by the concept of ‘resilience’ with it being a strong term used around the world after the pandemic. Some considered the concept to be an ‘excuse’ put forward by politicians in order that young people change their perceptions of struggle and adapt their circumstances to precariousness. And hold on. On the contrary: these young people consider that they should have a proactive attitude. According to the respondents, therefore, the proactive resilience resulting from job insecurity must overcome a ‘trap’ that can generate immobility, a ‘kind of self-learned helplessness before the system’. In their interpretation, ‘it is not that individuals should change and adapt to what exists, but rather that what exists, namely precariousness, is bad for people and that should change’ (Victoria, 28 years old, Madrid). And since the situation does not change, they decide to act.

Proactive resilience thus represents a significant feature of the flexible and dynamic character of young people who are acting in a highly precarious context. Far from settling for what they have and being grateful, they are willing to move on and to proactively fight. The definition of the proactive resilience that this research highlights might be: do not settle, speak up, criticize and improve, through actions and mobility decisions. This is the case of Carlos, a young medical doctor:

Nobody guides me, there is no need to be stupid. I am not idealistic. I have to be prepared for everything. I have a Ph.D. in Medicine … But … A lot is required of us, but almost nothing is offered. And of course I’m resilient! Politicians earn 150,000 euros and tell me how I have to live my life. Don’t complain! They think that’s synonymous with resilience. I do 5–6 shifts a week, which means not sleeping, working over forty hours to earn a base salary of 1,100 euros. It’s a disgrace, and it bothers me that it’s not changing! That’s why, I tried to take examinations abroad, I’ll soon be going to work and do research in a hospital in Singapore. But I want to come back in the future. I want to contribute to my country through the expertise I acquire. We’re asking for support, that’s all! (Carlos, 30 years old, Valencia)

The young people who took part in competitive examinations and obtained scholarships outside their country did so for two important reasons. They want to work in their field of training, in their sectors of activity, like health or research, but in their country, young people’s salaries are disproportionately small compared to their training, skills and professional worth. On the other hand, they consider that in Spain their work is undervalued or underfunded. Through proactive resilience they are fighting to achieve mobility to countries that meet these two conditions: minimally decent salaries that match their training level. However, they wish to return in the future, and they need support to make their dreams a reality. ‘Proactive resilience’ is therefore an attitude: ‘mobile’ young people want to overcome precariousness, but also to achieve success, deepening their thinking through an innovative mindset and showing ability to overcome adversity by acting, at the same time as desiring to return in the future and contribute to the development of their country.

Discussions and Conclusions

The article has analysed the link between precarious work, resilience and mobility among young postgraduates in Spain. It introduces the concept of ‘proactive resilience’ to highlight the ability of the respondents to escape precariousness through their ability to plan, create and develop new forms of action and thought for their future mobility.

In order to rule out any limitations in terms of the analysis and conclusion, and as the article shows, this study refers to Spanish postgraduates in the context of the current market, and it therefore does not cover all young people in Spain. This paper has followed the approach of Black and Walsh to the future mobility of young people. Adapted to this research, it shows how Spanish young people use their mobility to abandon precariousness and build their proactive resilience to construct a ‘mobile’ future that will help them escape their crisis. As observed in the analysis and despite expressing their discontent with their country, ‘proactive resilience’ enables this group to think long-term, take calculated risks, foster relationships, anticipate and act in a timely manner and collaborate to devise a better life for themselves. They can hence become the creators of their own professional development process, overcoming precariousness through proactive resilience and a participatory attitude, and finding jobs abroad that provide them with earnings suited to their qualifications, as well as satisfaction and personal and professional growth. As rightly noted by Cuzzocrea and Mandich (2016, p. 562): ‘Young people use (…) mobility to be reflexive about alternative futures to the ones that they feel currently constrained to in the space they occupy’.

This research identifies two trends in terms of how young people are escaping precariousness and moving toward mobility through proactive resilience. First is the proactive resilience to move shown by those looking for work abroad that matches their level of qualifications, and second is proactive resilience to move with the support of scholarships to continue training, or shown by those who have passed competitive examinations.

For the first group, the young people start with harrowing employment experiences, low salaries, unpaid scholarships and few professional opportunities in their country, but we observe that, without expecting anything – being aware that they lack the necessary support – they use the experiences acquired and through proactive resilience launch into new future mobilities. Although, as they affirm, by not having a work ‘connection’ in Spain, not having ‘support’ or any security, they are forced to accept job offers from abroad, which they accept immediately. This confirms what (Black & Walsh, 2010, p. 426) rightly note, that ‘they also have fears and concerns beyond their control’ about their future mobility. They are aware that they do not know what is awaiting them in the destination country, but they take risks and agree to leave Spain and start afresh, hoping to overcome precariousness through proactive resilience.

In relation to the second group, while they have obtained places of work and scholarships and know that the destination of their mobility is ‘safe’, at least for a time, they also express discontent that things have not worked the way they should in their country, meaning they have to leave it through mobility. They do not hide their anger and are critical, but at the same time they express proactive resilience by valuing the possibility of practicing mobility to fulfil their professional dreams. Thus, as Cuzzocrea and Mandich (2016, p. 563) remind us, ‘moving is equated to get started with one’s life (…) and it also means having the possibility to explore one’s predispositions, to understand what one really wants to become in life’. In their interviews, the respondents demand improvements, and call on politicians to support them.

In terms of the research questions raised at the beginning, we may first note that young people trained in Spain face precariousness because no there has been no generational change that values them, integrates them and offers them the opportunity to work in their country, other than through frequently unpaid internships. The respondents described this situation and it is well established in the literature and in statistical data, as reported in this paper (Arce, 2021; INE, 2023).

Second, as observed in the analysis, ‘proactive resilience’ is a part and a product of precariousness. It takes on the characteristics of a struggle with oneself, a form of pushing towards improvement, preparation, continuous reflection and action by young people who reject the idea of ‘enduring’ through resilience as they are told they should: ‘stand still as if nothing had happened, at home with their parents, waiting for better times’.

This research hence explains proactive resilience through the urgent process of mobility abroad to improve personal and professional lives. Job insecurity and resilience expressed as a proactive attitude interact and combine through the actions of these young postgraduates, who are tenaciously and courageously striving to move forward in search of professional and personal improvement, even if it means leaving their country for a time. Through ‘proactive resilience’, Spanish postgraduates are using their experience of mobility and their high potential (despite being unemployed or in precarious job niches), the ability to foster their talent, their innovation, creativity and imagination, and their desire to have a ‘voice’ in a country they consider fails to offer them the necessary conditions for their personal and professional development. For this reason, ‘proactive resilience’ will help them to overcome precariousness through mobility abroad, thereby contributing to the creation of a more inclusive mobile society.

The answers to the research questions confirm the hypotheses proposed at the beginning of the article. Spanish political actors must play a crucial role in resolving the serious situation of young people in the labour market. The analysis and the richness of the interviews show that the need for systemic change in Spain in order to truly value education and the professional and human capacities of young people.

The young interviewees in this research often refer to the Spanish political class in angry terms, asking them ‘not to forget us’ but to ‘integrate us’. This paper hence offers a proactive connection between the voices of the young interviewees and relevant political entities and actors. Adequate policies must be implemented to create employment for young people and also for graduates and postgraduates, such as offering more places to resident doctors, with the recent health crisis having revealed a shortage in the Spanish health system. It is also crucial to apply mechanisms to keep young talent in Spain, as well as to encourage young people to return, bearing in mind the backdrop of the crisis.

In this way, and in addition to the ‘Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan’ mentioned in this paper, it is worth noting Spain’s plan for the attraction and retention of scientific and innovative talent in the research field (Ministry of Science and Innovation, 2022). This plan includes a series of regulatory reforms, new calls and information and communication tools, with the aim of encouraging scientists to return to Spain. This is merely an encouraging start to a process of much-needed change in Spain, not only in the research field but across all professional fields that should be integrating young postgraduates, especially the precarious graduates in human and social sciences, who are unemployed or working below their level of qualification.

To conclude, this article may open up new avenues for future research. For instance, one might investigate not only young postgraduates but also young Spanish people and/or Europeans who are exercising mobility but wish to return to their countries of origin. Another important line of research concerns how to retain talent, without forcing people into migrating or exercising mobility to work abroad, by creating sufficient jobs in people’s countries of origin, both in the EU and worldwide. Linked to this is the concept proposed in this article of ‘proactive resilience’ among young postgraduates: they represent the future, innovation and creativity, and their voices need to be heard. While mobility may be essential for personal growth, the young are expressly a desire for stability and the opportunity to work for the future of their country, ‘with a charged battery’ and in line with their merits.