Youth migration is diverse in forms, patterns, and practices within particular contexts, geographies, and histories. The 15 chapters in this collection tell us in varied ways that youth migration is an important area of study across disciplines, for example, in history, economics, political science, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Youth remains a contested concept with different meanings according to use, purpose, and framework of analysis around the world; often age is the distinct qualifier, but may not be relevant when enmeshed with bearing adult responsibilities, even at a young age. What we can agree upon is that youth could be that phase in life when experiences are accumulated through education, interactions in the workplace, and in the community, both domestic and international, within a period of forming identities and forging paths for the future. They face so many challenges and opportunities that impact not only their own lives but their communities as well for scholars, policy makers, and practitioners to care about.

In a globalized world in the 21st century, youth migration continues to shape the future of families, communities, and countries as the talents, labor, and resources of young people become mobile. Their mobility, whether domestic or foreign, is rooted in structures and practices that are lacking. In examples of rural youth migration in Ethiopia, the development of agriculture and land policies could avert such outmigration. The lack of economic opportunities in the Philippines, the need to access better resources like higher education in Albania, and the search for autonomy are some favored reasons for leaving, and along with this come other issues and challenges in migrants’ destinations. Discrimination, vulnerability, and precariousness define most experiences of marginalized migrant youth. But diverse groups of youth migrants face them differently. Gender is a defining variable in migration that intersects with sexuality, religion, class, ethnicity, status, and others; roles, expectations, and aspirations are organized in ways that are not equitable for men, women, and trans. Hence, gendered modalities attends to this variance in migration experiences and processes.

Youth migration is not always decided upon through “free choice”; it is forced on them through war, persecution, and oppression, or even as state policy, for example in the British empire. Migration is a way to escape from death, violence, and harassment, as in the case of Bangladeshi queers and Syrian refugees.