Citation: Addeo, F.; Blanco-Gregory, R.; Maddaloni, D.; Moffa, G. At the Origins of Migration Choices: A Survey of Students at Two South European Universities. Societies 2023, 13, 40. https://doi.org/10.3390/ soc13020040 Academic Editor: Pratyusha Basu Received: 29 December 2022 Revised: 2 February 2023 Accepted: 5 February 2023 Published: 7 February 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). societies Article At the Origins of Migration Choices: A Survey of Students at Two South European Universities Felice Addeo 1 , Rocío Blanco-Gregory 2, * , Domenico Maddaloni 1 and Grazia Moffa 3 1 Department of Political Science and Communication, University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, Italy 2 Department of Business Management and Sociology, University of Extremadura, 06006 Badajoz, Spain 3 Department of Political and Social Studies, University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, Italy * Correspondence: rblanco@unex.es; Tel.: +34-927-257-000 Abstract: Migration research has long highlighted the role of factors influencing migration flows at the structural level. Recent literature has shifted researchers’ attention to the individual drivers influencing the definition of migration strategies and, before that, the individual propensity for mobility. In this paper, we present the results of a multiple regression model applied to data collected by means of an online survey of students at the universities of Salerno (Italy) and Extremadura (Spain). The model highlights the low prominence achieved by factors such as gender and parental cultural capital on this propensity. A more important role is played by the personal experience of living abroad, a proactive attitude toward the future, and the propensity to seek professional self-fulfillment even at the price of sacrificing one’s territorial affiliation. Keywords: drivers of migration; southern Europe; tertiary students; online survey; multiple regression 1. Introduction The debate on the drivers of migration has long revolved around the analysis of structural factors that migration scholars have always considered to be at the origins of population movements. Migration scholars have therefore long focused on variables such as employment and unemployment rates and wage levels in the areas of origin and destination of mobility flows. Recently, however, the increasing complexity of these flows in what has been called “the age of migration” [1] has pushed scholars towards broadening research perspectives on this issue. Increasing attention has been paid to factors and motives operating (1) at the meso level, such as the social networks to which potential migrants may have access, and (2) at the micro level, such as the personal experiences or personality types of the individual actors who move into the migration scene [2]. In addition, the role of non-economic drivers—such as those relating to the choice of a particular lifestyle [3,4]— may acquire more relevance when migration choices are made by people of higher social or cultural status. This does not mean that these factors do not also operate at lower levels in the social hierarchy [5], but it seems reasonable to assume that those belonging to the middle or upper classes have greater degrees of freedom in this regard. The purpose of this work is to estimate of the relative impacts of some individual drivers, such as living abroad, proactive attitude, and professional self-fulfillment, along with gender and cultural capital, on individual mobility decisions and strategies. The study focuses on a specific segment of the population, that is, students enrolled in humanities or social science degree programs in the universities of Salerno (Italy) and Extremadura (Spain). Specifically, we employed the online survey technique to collect data on this target population, in order to investigate the life, study, and mobility experiences of these students, as well as their attitudes and opinions toward their personal and work future [6]. Next, we employed a portion of the collected data to construct a multiple regression model measuring the relative weight of several variables on the students’ propensity to emigrate once they finish their studies. The model shows the low weights of factors such as gender Societies 2023, 13, 40. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc13020040 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/societies