ABSTRACT This paper explores the concept of refugeeness as a socially constructed identity shaped by both democratic and authoritarian migration management systems. Using qualitative interview data from studies with children and adults fleeing Syria, Iran, and Iraq, the article investigates what and how interviewees communicate about their refugeeness to non‐refugee researchers from Germany. Employing the theoretical concept of performativity, the paper demonstrates that the processes of un/doing refugeeness in research interviews are agentic, as interviewees actively produce knowledge about authoritarianism in relation to the positionality of researchers from democratic contexts. Key findings show that interviewees make refugeeness intelligible by simplifying complex experiences and referring to aspects of the authoritarian/democratic dichotomy that are familiar within German discourses and reflected in asylum law, such as religious coercion. Through VulnerAbility, interviewees performatively enact information about political repression and human rights violations by referring to emotions and bodily sensations, such as fear, sorrow, or pain, which convey to researchers what life under authoritarianism and on flight routes feels like. In this way, interviewees enable researchers to empathise with their experiences by imagining themselves in similar situations.
ABSTRACT Residential mobility is a key mechanism of urban socio‐spatial change, yet less attention has been paid to the formation of mobility intention preceding actual moves, particularly in Southern European contexts. This paper investigates the socio‐economic, demographic, housing and neighbourhood factors associated with residential mobility intentions in Italy's two main urban regions, Rome and Milan, together with respondents' stated motivations for prospective mobility and immobility. Drawing on data from the 2025 MetroMosaic Survey, we use logistic regression models to assess whether established correlates of mobility intentions operate differently across two metropolitan contexts that share the same national housing system but have followed divergent socioeconomic and housing‐market trajectories. Results show substantial convergence between Rome and Milan: education, employment instability, housing tenure and adequacy, household composition and neighbourhood dissatisfaction are associated with mobility intentions in broadly similar ways. Greater differentiation emerges in stated motivations, with significant differences between the two urban regions concentrated in involuntary/forced and neighbourhood‐related reasons. Overall, the findings suggest that shared institutional conditions structure the opportunities and constraints underlying residential intentions, while contrasting metropolitan contexts emerge in some of the reasons associated with moving or staying. The study highlights the value of residential intentions for understanding how aspirations, resources and constraints interact before residential mobility is realised.
ABSTRACT Population change across US counties has taken sharply different paths, with some areas experiencing steady growth while others face persistent decline. These trends are not random; they reflect deeper shifts in the economy and uneven regional development. This study contributes to demographic and regional research by treating population growth and decline as two distinct demographic regimes, each influenced by its own set of factors. We examine which factors are associated with county‐level population change in the United States from 2010 to 2020, using data from 3130 counties with complete records across all explanatory variables, compiled from the American Community Survey, the Bureau of Economic Analysis and fiscal records. To capture both overall patterns and local variations, we combine standard regression methods (OLS, spatial lag and spatial error models) with Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression (MGWR). Counties are explicitly divided into growing ( N = 1548) and shrinking ( N = 1582) groups, with models estimated separately for each. The findings show a moderate but consistent asymmetry between growth and decline. Declining counties tend to cluster together and are associated with consistent factors such as aging populations, weak labour markets, reliance on agriculture and, to a more limited extent, housing tenure. Growth, on the other hand, is more spatially variable and localized. It is associated with an agricultural employment structure operating at a broad scale, while natural increase and tax burden exhibit highly localized associations, and housing tenure shows a broader but uneven association. MGWR provides a substantially better fit than global models in both cases ( R 2 = 0.546 for growing counties and 0.595 for shrinking counties, compared with 0.043 and 0.150 under standard OLS), highlighting that population change is a complex, multiscale process. Understanding these spatial patterns is crucial for developing policies and planning strategies that are sensitive to local conditions.
ABSTRACT This article examines how intergenerational interactions intersect with community resources to shape pathways to active ageing among urban older adults in China. Drawing on intergenerational solidarity theory, it conceptualises family and community as an integrated configuration in which care responsibilities and moral expectations are redistributed rather than simply shifted. Based on 40 semi‐structured interviews conducted in a subdistrict of Health Commission of Changning District Shanghai (2024), the analysis compares three residential arrangements: three‐generation co‐residence, empty‐nest households with distant children, and proximate but non‐co‐resident families (“a bowl of soup's distance”). It identifies three pathways: facilitation, where stable family support enables community participation; substitution, where community services replace routine functional support under distance; and complementarity, where proximity and community embeddedness jointly sustain autonomy. Across pathways, active ageing emerges as a moralised achievement sustained through self‐discipline, selective disclosure, and restrained help‐seeking to avoid “burdening” adult children.
ABSTRACT Do large cities promote intergenerational mobility? Existing evidence comes almost exclusively from developed societies, where urbanisation largely preceded metropolitan concentration. In rapidly developing contexts, these two processes unfold together, making it unclear whether large cities confer mobility advantages beyond urbanisation itself. This study disentangles these forces using pooled data from the 2014, 2016 and 2018 China Labour‐force Dynamics Survey. Comparing intergenerational occupational mobility across rural areas, non‐core cities, and core cities, defined as municipalities, provincial capitals, and sub‐provincial cities, we find a metropolitan mobility premium in absolute terms. In China, core‐city residence is associated with substantially higher absolute mobility (an escalator effect) but does not weaken intergenerational persistence (no equaliser effect). This escalator premium is evident among rural‐origin migrants, the in‐situ urbanised, and urban locals, is smaller and not statistically significant among urban‐origin migrants, and is largely attenuated after accounting for educational attainment and hukou incorporation. These findings caution against equating rising mobility with expanding equality of opportunity. In developing contexts, large cities may accelerate structural upgrading while leaving the intergenerational transmission of advantage intact.
