How migration affects youth
For millions of young people around the world migration is part of their biographies. Yet we know very little about their mobility throughout their young lives because we’ve focused on just two types of moves: their first move to a new country of residence, or their parents’ migration. Mazzucato is interested in how young people’s continued mobility, or mobility trajectories, influences their performance in school, what they do after they finish school, and their psychological well-being. These questions are yet to be answered.

"My research is not necessarily assuming that there is a problem. We don't know whether there is a problem, and what the problem is," says Valentina Mazzucato. “We will be trying to understand the mobility patterns of youth with migrant backgrounds, including the youth that stayed behind while their parents moved. We want to compare the youth who do not move with those who do move to different European countries. We will also study one origin-group—migrant children from Ghana which allows us to compare those who stay at origin with those who move to Europe.  This is a new way to understand how mobility affects youth's life chances. Most research compares migrant youths with youth from the majority population, such as Moroccan and Turkish youth with Dutch youth.”

Excellent research
Staatssecretaris Dekker (Sciences) during the award ceremony paid tribute to the researchers whom receive a grant from the ERC. “This is a great moment to value the success of Dutch scientists in European research. Receiving the 500th grant confirms the high quality of Dutch science, because excellence is the most important criteria”, thus spoke Dekker.

Read the interview with Valentina Mazzucato and her sister Mariana in the Webmagazine