To secure the sustainability of the affected regions, policy-makers in several countries have implemented strategies for adapting to or reversing the trend of population decline (Haartsen and Venhorst, 2010; Heeringa, 2020; Küpper, 2010; Meijer and Syssner, 2017; Syssner, 2016). In general, the scientific literature has identified four options for dealing with shrinkage: (1) trivialising the numbers, (2) counteracting decline, (3) adapting to decline or (4) utilising shrinkage as an opportunity (Hospers and Reverda, 2015). While (1) and (2) are usually seen as the least promising strategies from a scientific perspective, they continue to be widely used by local and regional governments (Heeringa, 2020; Küpper, 2010; Syssner and Meijer, 2020). According to Syssner and Meijer (2020), one potential explanation for this insistence on growth-oriented policies is that many governments have spent years investing in a growth rhetoric. On the one hand, giving up the goal of counteracting decline and restoring population growth may signal governance failure. On the other hand, following a policy that aims at adapting to population decline by resizing public infrastructures in line with declining population densities can lead to a loss of quality of life for those “left behind”, and limit the potentialities of the affected regions. A policy that simply focuses on resizing public infrastructures can fuel feelings of despair, resulting in discontent with political leadership and revenge by the “places that don't matter” at the ballot box (Rodríguez-Pose, 2018).

Thus, in recent years, scholars have discussed positive perspectives for dealing with population decline. Such visions can be subsumed under the label of “smart shrinking/shrinkage” or “smart decline” (Haartsen and Venhorst, 2010; Hollander and Németh, 2011; Peters et al., 2018). Here, population decline is seen as providing momentum for transformation – that is, as offering an opportunity to do things differently (Haartsen and Venhorst, 2010). Following the approach of smart shrinkage, effective measures for preventing processes of peripheralisation in rural regions that are experiencing depopulation must include policies and planning for growth as well as policies and planning for adaptation. Furthermore, such measures must position planning in areas of depopulation as an enabler of, rather than as a barrier to, economic and social development (Syssner and Meijer, 2020).

The integration of young people's needs into regional depopulation policy-making can thus be seen as an opportunity for doing things differently, as it implies that the needs of young people will receive greater attention in rural policy-making, and hence that the mode of policy-making itself will start to change. Following the logic of smart shrinkage, the inclusion of young people and their needs in rural policy-making could help to transform the social and institutional characteristics of rural regions. Integrating the needs of young people into policy-making could support the emergence of a more qualitative, and thus wellbeing-focused, regional development agenda of the kind that regional science and planning scholars have been strongly advocating in recent years (Pike et al., 2007; Shucksmith, 2018).

As youth out-migration is a key factor in population decline, policy-makers at different governance levels (from local to national) and in different European countries have, in recent years, implemented strategies specifically targeted at influencing young people's migration aspirations and reversing the process of rural-to-urban migration. Both out- and return migration and their consequences have been well researched since the early 2000s (e.g. Farrugia, 2020; Haartsen and Thissen, 2014; Ní Laoire, 2007; Pedersen and Gram, 2018; Rérat, 2014; Stockdale, 2004). As was mentioned above, there is a growing body of literature on the broader policy options for regions experiencing depopulation. However, less is known about measures aimed at counteracting the out-migration of young people as a particularly important driver of depopulation.

Against this background, the aim of the present paper is to offer a framework for the analysis of policy measures that are specifically targeted at influencing young people's migration decisions. The research questions guiding this analysis are as follows: How can the needs of mobile young people be integrated into rural policy-making? And, how can youth-oriented policies affect rural youth migration?

These two research questions will be answered through a comparative case study conducted in four rural regions in Austria and Germany. In its approach, the paper contributes to the scientific discourse on strategies for mitigating the challenges associated with population decline. It also examines policy options specifically targeted at addressing the needs of the population group with the highest mobility. Based on previous studies on strategies for regions experiencing depopulation, this paper seeks to shed light on youth migration as a central entry point for both policy research and design.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: Section 2 introduces the theoretical foundation for a regional development agenda that focuses on the needs of a young, mobile target group. Evidence on drivers of youth out- and return migration serves as the foundation for the concept of “youth-oriented regional development”, which is presented in Subsection 2.2. Section 3 outlines the methodological approach followed in this study. Section 4 discusses the main findings on the integration of the needs of mobile young people into policy-making, and also addresses the potential impact of youth-oriented regional development on rural youth migration. The concluding chapter summarises these findings and highlights perspectives for future research.

Migration is an age-selective process that strongly correlates with life course transitions. As the most relevant transition is that from youth to adulthood, the propensity to migrate typically peaks at young adult ages. Research on internal migration, defined as “long-distance changes of address within national borders” (Mulder, 2018, p. 1152), indicates that two-thirds of such moves are completed by the age of 35 (Bernard, 2017). This pattern also applies to Austria and Germany: between 2010 and 2020, two out of three internal migrants in Austria and Germany were aged 35 years or younger (Statistics Austria, 2022; Statistical offices of the Länder, 2022).

In the scientific literature, the residential mobility of people between the ages of 16 and 35 years is usually defined as “youth migration” or “youth mobility” (King and Williams, 2018).¹ In the scientific discourse, the definition of “youth” is based on a relational approach to the life course: this stage is placed between the stages of “childhood” and “adulthood”, with “childhood” ending when an individual reaches sexual maturity and “adulthood” starting when a person becomes economically independent and socially settled (Faßmann et al., 2018, p. 15). This division of the life course into life stages is, above all, socially constructed. It is based on various features of a society, such as its culture, social class, or lifestyle groups (King and Williams, 2018). Hence, there is no uniform definition of this age group. Indeed, different international organisations, such as the UN, the OECD and the EU, have different delineations of this specific life stage. For example, the youth life stage may be broadly defined as covering ages 15 to 29 years (EU) or ages 15 to 34 years (OECD). From the perspective of developmental psychology, this life stage includes the phases of early adolescence (12 to 18 years), later adolescence (18 to 24 years) and early adulthood (24 to 34 years) (see Faßmann et al., 2018). While people in the youth life stage have the highest levels of residential mobility, the propensity to migrate decreases as people enter the life stage of adulthood by starting a family. In summary, residential mobility is triggered by certain life course events, such as the completion of higher education, a job change, union formation or the birth of a child (Feijten et al., 2008) – i.e., by events that usually mark the transition from youth to adulthood.

Apart from life course events, migration is linked to lifestyle as well as to social and economic resources. Academically oriented young people in particular are often forced to leave their rural places of origin due to the structural constraints implicit in acquiring higher education (Pedersen and Gram, 2018). Studies on migration selectivity have highlighted that well-educated young adults from middle- and upper-class households have a particularly high propensity for out-migration (Elshof et al., 2014; Rye, 2011; Scheibelhofer, 2018). Moreover, young rural-to-urban migrants tend to have a stronger orientation towards urban lifestyles characterised by cosmopolitanism and individualisation (Farrugia, 2016; Pedersen and Gram, 2018). Farrugia (2016) even described a “mobility imperative”, whereby rural youth must be mobile “in order to access the resources they need to navigate biographies and construct identities” (Farrugia, 2016, p. 837). Thus, in the perceptions of others, mobility becomes obligatory for the identity formation of a successful adult (Mærsk et al., 2023), while staying in a rural area is associated with “being not clever enough” (Pedersen and Gram, 2018).

Overall, youth migration should be viewed as a multidimensional and complex process in which life course events as well as structural and socio-economic factors must be taken into account. While research on internal migration within western countries has generally identified work and education as the main drivers of internal migration, more recent studies have also highlighted the importance of cultural amenities as well as social ties, especially those to family members (Bijker and Haartsen, 2012; Mulder, 2018). Furthermore, people's norms and values – e.g., searching for an open and tolerant living environment – are potential drivers of migration (Florida, 2004; Fratsea, 2019).

Education- and work-related internal migration is often triggered by regional disparities. Remote areas are especially likely to lack opportunities for pursuing higher education or employment in the knowledge economy. Thus, attaining higher education and following certain career paths may require spatial mobility. Leavers tend to have a stronger orientation towards individualisation and self-realisation than stayers. In contrast, stayers usually have stronger ties to their family and to other social networks in their region of origin (Dax and Machold, 2002; McLaughlin et al., 2014).

Nevertheless, leaving one's region for education- and career-related reasons is not necessarily a unidirectional decision. In different life stages, people may prefer different residential locations. While young people who are transitioning from school to university or from education to employment often move from rural to urban areas, people who have a family may prefer to live in suburban or rural areas. According to the “youthification hypothesis” (Moos, 2014; Moos et al., 2019), young people prefer to live in “amenity-rich, often already highly gentrified, downtowns ‘successful’ in the knowledge economy” (Moos et al., 2019, p. 224). Parents, by contrast, often seek out a high-quality environment for their children that offers safety and green surroundings (Kim et al., 2005). In their study on counter-urbanisation movements to peripheral areas in Denmark, Hansen and Aner (2017) found that people with children make up the largest share of all highly educated in-migrants to these areas. Furthermore, studies on rural-to-urban migration have highlighted the option of return migration, especially in the family formation phase (Haartsen and Thissen, 2014; Mulder et al., 2020a; Ní Laoire, 2007; Rérat, 2014). While family-related return migration is often linked to the image of a “country childhood idyll” (Jones, 1997; cited after Ní Laoire, 2007, p. 338), it is also driven by the desire for family support and for children to develop emotional ties to their relatives (Grimsrud, 2011; Mulder, 2018; Ní Laoire, 2007). Therefore, return migration can be seen as an opportunity for rural regions affected by depopulation. As temporal out-migration usually has a positive impact on individual development, rural regions can benefit from knowledge transfer and the inflow of human capital through return migration. Thus, the over-arching problem for rural regions experiencing depopulation is not out-migration, but the small numbers of people who return (Stockdale, 2004).

It is important to note that recent trends in youth migration were disrupted in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In an analysis of internal migration in Germany, Stawarz et al. (2022) found that the mobility of young adults declined in 2020, while urban-rural moves, mainly of families, remained stable. Another study on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on internal migration in Norway (Tønnessen, 2021) found record-high levels of out-migration from Oslo in 2020, coupled with particularly high levels of internal migration to other parts of Norway. While this wave out-migration from Oslo was mainly driven by families, the number of people in their sixties who moved out of Oslo also increased. On the other hand, out-migration from Oslo did not increase in 2020 among people under age 25. In the German study, Stawarz et al. (2022) expected rural-to-urban moves to return to previous levels after the Covid-19 pandemic ended. Similar effects are expected for other industrialised countries. Consequently, youth out-migration from rural areas will remain a challenge for the affected regions, even if the long-term consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic have yet to be fully assessed.

In scientific debates about rural out-migration, it has been argued that young people should not be restrained from realising their desire for spatial mobility (Satsangi and Gkartzios, 2019; Shucksmith, 2010). Instead, a positive approach to migration would favour supporting return migration over preventing out- migration.

For many young people, a (potential) return is already integrated into their decision to temporarily leave their home region. In their study on return migration to the Northeast-Polder in the northern Netherlands, Haartsen and Thissen (2014) emphasised that many young migrants have mentally never left their home region. Decisions to leave could be intertwined with future plans to return to the region (Haartsen and Thissen, 2014). Furthermore, innovations in communications and transport technologies now allow individuals to maintain close ties to their place of origin. A study on migration and place attachment in rural America by Barcus and Brunn (2010) highlighted the relevance of communication technologies. The authors observed that people's ties to their place of origin can be characterised through the concept of “place elasticity”, in which portability through mass communication is a central element. It is often difficult to draw clear lines between staying, leaving and returning because they intersect in the realities of young people's mobility decisions.

In most cases, voluntary migration is associated with a decision-making process that can take several years. Hence, policies should seek to actively influence this process. By emphasising the manifold opportunities in the region of origin and by investing in the creation of a regional identity, an attachment to the place of origin can be established that supports the decision to remain in or to return to the region of origin (Barcus and Brunn, 2010; Feijten et al., 2008). Studies on youth mobility have identified family and friendship ties, family roots and memories, residential familiarisation, and physical and natural qualities as relevant factors that support place attachment (Demi et al., 2009; Haartsen and Thissen, 2014; Rérat, 2014; Seyfrit et al., 2010; Stockdale et al., 2018).

Steering youth migration is a difficult task due to the complexity of the underlying motives of potential migrants. Nonetheless, it is possible to create incentives (Fidlschuster et al., 2016) for staying and returning that are tailored to the diverse needs of mobile young people. These incentives should consider the variety of needs young people have, and recognise the multidimensionality and interdependence of the operating drivers. To attract highly skilled immigrants to peripheral areas, Hansen and Aner (2017, p. 10) suggested implementing “a broad strategy that focuses on job opportunities as well as physical, recreational, cultural, and social aspects”. Thus, policies aimed at influencing the mobility decisions of young people should include a bundle of measures that integrate hard, soft and social locational factors.

In the following, this contribution proposes “youth-oriented regional development” (Schorn, 2022) as an approach to rural policy-making in regions experiencing depopulation (see Table 1). Based on the literature on youth migration and governance in rural regions affected by depopulation, “youth-oriented regional development” is understood as an approach that follows the principles of integrated development. It acknowledges the diverse needs of mobile young people and the fluid forms of mobility. Furthermore, it goes beyond visions of a “rural idyll” by taking structural as well as institutional dimensions of rural development into account, and it supports the sustainable development of regions experiencing depopulation. The proposed approach includes eight dimensions that are derived from scientific discourses on youth migration/mobility and its underlying drivers. It covers hard, soft and social locational factors.

Building on the classification by Hooijen et al. (2017), hard locational factors include traditional economic aspects such as jobs. In traditional migration theories, the availability of jobs is usually considered the most relevant hard locational factor. Nevertheless, recent studies on gender-selective rural-to-urban migration have also highlighted the need for gender sensitivity in rural labour markets, as well as for support infrastructures that enable parents to achieve job-family compatibility and a better work-life balance in general (Bock, 2015; Leibert, 2016; Oedl-Wieser, 2016; Wiest and Leibert, 2013). Other hard locational factors that may be relevant for young adults include access to higher and further education, public transport and high-quality housing.

As soft locational factors, Hooijen et al. (2017) have observed that cultural and recreational amenities play a central role in community satisfaction and place attachment. In rural areas, the variety and the accessibility of leisure and cultural activities are especially important. For example, leisure activities should be available for people in different life situations, and should include leisure opportunities that can be utilised without having to be a member of an association.

According to Hooijen et al. (2017), social factors constitute a third category of locational factors that are relevant for determining young people's migration behaviour. The authors observed that social networks are especially important for the decision to migrate. While the capacity of policy measures to influence this factor is rather limited, studies on return migration have emphasised that social networks, such as family and friends, could be mobilised as “intermediaries” for the home region (Nadler, 2016; Wiest and Leibert, 2013). Furthermore, rural areas can invest in communication measures, such as location marketing that promotes positive perceptions of the area and regional identity formation among (potential) migrants, and that supports the maintenance of emotional ties. For example, successful returnees could promote the advantages of returning to their place of origin (Nadler, 2016). Moreover, participatory planning can be used to support spatial ties and the formation of a regional identity. Policies specifically targeted at the needs of young people could be implemented by encouraging their active participation in rural policy-making. Hence, mobile young people could be invited to participate in the formulation of innovative policy approaches in depopulating rural regions. However, for such a strategy to succeed, rural policy-makers and other relevant stakeholders would have to be open to integrating young people into policy-making processes, and members of the young target groups would have to demonstrate that they have the abilities and capabilities needed for participation. The involvement of young people in policy-making may be limited by a range of factors, including time constraints due to other obligations, a lack of communication skills, and a lack of interest in participating. Thus, we need to find suitable modes for participation that consider how young people in the early 21st century actually want to be included in policy-making (Kamuf and Weck, 2022; Suppers, 2022). Furthermore, rural communities must display an overall “culture of openness” towards new ideas and a tolerance of diverse lifestyles to attract a target group whose lifestyle is characterised by cosmopolitanism and individualisation. This “‘culture of openness” is especially important for the institutional dimension of rural policy-making.

In summary, integrating the needs of mobile young people into rural policies can result in a youth-oriented regional development approach that applies both a people-sensitive and a place-based perspective to policy innovation in depopulating rural areas. However, given the multidimensionality of this approach, realising it is likely to be a challenge. How youth-oriented regional development can be realised in practice, and how this approach can help to steer rural youth migration, will be analysed in Section 4, following a presentation of the methodological approach of this paper.

The analysis focuses on measures that have been implemented and actions that have been taken at the regional level. The case study regions have been consciously selected through demographic data analysis, as well as through a thematic analysis of planning documents and projects. The selection was based on the following criteria:

a peripheral location, with the majority of the case study area displaying a low level of accessibility to urban agglomerations;

Based on the selection approach of “purposeful maximal sampling” (Creswell, 2013), the Hochsauerlandkreis (North Rhine-Westphalia/Germany), the district of Freyung-Grafenau (Bavaria/Germany), the district of Pinzgau (Salzburg/Austria) and the region of Obersteiermark West (Styria/Austria) were selected for the analysis (see Figure 1).

While the selected regions share a history of ongoing youth out-migration, they have different geographical locations and economic situations. The Hochsauerlandkreis is characterised by its proximity to the metropolitan region of the Ruhrgebiet to the west and by its more remote areas to the south and east. It enjoys a generally favourable economic situation due to the presence in the district of highly specialised small- and medium-sized enterprises in the field of manufacturing. The district of Freyung-Grafenau is characterised by its peripheral location bordering the Czech Republic and Austria and its transforming economy. It is dominated by the glass manufacturing, construction and service industries. The Pinzgau is an Alpine region with a strong tourism industry, while the Obersteiermark region displays a more dispersed pattern. The western part of Obersteiermark features an Alpine landscape dominated by agriculture and forestry, while the eastern part of the region is more industrialised.

In each of these regions, the composition of the various stakeholders involved in the realisation of youth-oriented regional development is different. The stakeholders come from a range of policy fields, including rural development, economic development, education and social work. Different funding schemes support the implementation of policy measures that focus on the needs of young people.

Only measures that clearly address young people were included in the analysis. In each case study region, we identified one key project that most clearly reflects the youth-oriented regional development approach (see Table 2). Based on these key projects, we traced further regional measures that address young people and their needs, and that were implemented between the late 2000s and 2019.

We have collected qualitative as well as quantitative data for this study, interviewing a total of 37 stakeholders for the qualitative research, with eight to 10 stakeholders per case study region (see Table A.1 in the Appendix). All interviewees possessed expert knowledge in the field of rural development or youth work. Each interviewee was involved in the design and/or implementation of youth-oriented measures in the case study region or in the funding of the implemented measures, or held a professional position in youth work. The interviews took place between March and June 2019. Additionally, 44 documents were collected, giving priority to documents that impacted the design of the regional measures in substantial and/or procedural terms. The regional development strategy, as the central strategic document for collaboration at the regional level, was included in all four case study regions. The quantitative data for the demographic analysis came from the statistical databases of Austria (STATcube) and Germany (Regionaldatenbank Deutschland).

Qualitative data were analysed using the method of qualitative content analysis (Zhang and Wildemuth, 2009), and applying both inductive and deductive coding. Deductive coding followed the approach of youth-oriented regional development as presented in Table 1. Through inductive coding, the theoretical approach of youth-oriented regional development can be juxtaposed with the practice of youth-oriented policy-making.

Furthermore, we described the trends and trend breaks in the internal migration rates of young people (aged 18 to 29 years) for the 2005–2020 period in order to study the potential effects of the implemented measures on youth migration. To increase the validity of the findings, we included the internal migration rates of the 30- to 49-year-olds for the same period as an indicator of family-oriented migration. The age thresholds for youth and family migration were based on the availability of data in the Regionaldatenbank Deutschland. The internal migration rates of the 18- to 29-year-olds and of the 30-to-49-year olds were later compared to the national averages for rural regions. Regions were categorised as “rural” based on the urban-rural typology provided by Eurostat (Eurostat, 2021).²

All four case study regions have implemented measures to mitigate the negative effects of youth out-migration on a regional scale since the late 2000s, and especially since the early to mid-2010s. Depending on the regional context as well as on the stakeholders involved in the policy-making process, different measures have been implemented that together contribute to the realisation of a youth-oriented regional development approach. Economic actors play an important role in all four case study regions. These economic actors are often focused on strengthening regional competitiveness. On the other hand, in those regions where the stakeholders involved in the process of youth-oriented regional development have recognised the relevance of qualitative development (Hochsauerlandkreis), or where social and civil society actors are engaged in the process of rural policy-making (Obersteiermark West and Pinzgau), there is an increasing focus on wellbeing-related measures. Overall, the variety of measures implemented in the four case study regions clearly shows the place-based nature of youth-oriented regional development.

Nevertheless, the comparative case study also reveals the similarities of youth-oriented regional development strategies in practice (see Table 3). All four regions share a focus on the hard locational factor of “jobs”, as well as on the social locational factor of “emotional ties”. The realisation of these two dimensions is often interlinked. For example, the variety of career opportunities is highlighted through place-branding activities. A third relevant factor that all case study regions cover in their youth-oriented policy-making practices is the involvement of young people in rural policy-making processes. Hence, young people are seen as relevant stakeholders in youth-oriented development. The realisation of the different dimensions of youth-oriented development in the case study regions will now be presented in greater detail.

The policy analysis has shown that youth-oriented regional development cannot be promoted through a single measure, but must instead be realised through a diverse approach that integrates different measures. A variety of projects have been implemented in the case study regions since the mid-2000s. Taken together, these projects define youth-oriented regional development practices. Depending on the problem definition and the actor arrangements, different priorities are integrated into the regional strategy. In most of the regions, the implementation of a youth-oriented regional development agenda is a process that has spanned several years. While the first individual measures were implemented in the mid- to late 2000s, a more integrated approach that covers several dimensions of the proposed theoretical framework was not formulated until the early to mid-2010s. This becomes particularly obvious when looking at the key projects that were established in this period (Table 2). The key projects in the Hochsauerlandkreis and in the Freyung-Grafenau and Pinzgau districts were established as place-branding measures through which job opportunities and the high quality of life were promoted to young target groups transitioning from youth to adulthood. These projects also sought to encourage the formation a positive regional identity. In contrast, in the Obersteiermark West region, the policy field of youth management was integrated into the instrument of regional management. Thus, a social perspective became integrated into a territorial policy field.

However, when examining the realisation of youth-oriented regional development measures, the question is not just what could be done or what was done in the individual regions, but also what the effects of this approach have been on the migration of rural youth. To provide an initial answer to this question, we have analysed the internal migration of 18- to 29-year-olds in the 2005–2020 period (see Figure 2). As the phase of family formation must be considered as a relevant life stage for potential return migration, we have also included the internal migration of 30- to 49-year-olds in the analysis (see Figure 3). Furthermore, we have used the moving average for illustrative purposes to smooth out short-term fluctuations (for the original data on internal migration, see Tables A.2 and A.3 in the Appendix). The data for the case study regions were compared to the national averages for rural regions in Austria and Germany.

The analysis of internal youth migration rates revealed that the negative trend has been less pronounced in all four case study regions since the mid-2010s. From that point onwards, the balance between out-migration and in-migration has stabilised. This overall positive trend is based on both increasing levels of youth in-migration and lower or stable levels of out-migration. However, the internal youth migration trends are very dissimilar across the four regions.

In the district of Freyung-Grafenau, for example, no decline in the number of out-migrants can be observed since the implementation of a more integrated approach towards youth-oriented regional development (see Table A.4 in the Appendix). In this district, the number of young out-migrants has remained relatively constant over time, with 2016 and 2017 being outliers. On the other hand, the in-migration of 18- to 29-year-olds has increased since 2014. Overall, the negative youth migration balance has stabilised since 2012 in this Bavarian district.

In the Hochsauerlandkreis, youth in-migration increased between 2012 and 2019 (see Table A.5 in the Appendix). An increase in the number of out-migrants can likewise be observed in the same period. In the rural parts of this southern Westphalian region, 2015 and 2016 represent statistical outliers in the internal migration trend. For example, there was an increase in youth in-migration in 2015 that was offset by an above-average number of young out-migrants in the following year. For both German case study regions, 2020 represents another statistical outlier, with both in- and out-migration among the 18 to 29 age group remaining at lower levels. This finding can be explained by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on residential relocations among young people; a trend that was also observed by Stawarz et al. (2022).

In the Pinzgau district (see Table A.6 in the Appendix), no clear changes in the development of internal youth migration can be observed for the 2005–2020 period. Overall, the negative migration balance decreased, but there was still less in-migration than out-migration in this region among 18- to 29-year-olds. However, the internal youth migration balance stabilised in the second half of the 2010s due to an increase in in-migration.

The most pronounced decrease in the number of out-migrants is observable in the Obersteiermark West region after 2018. Over the same period, the number of in-migrants remained relatively stable (see Table A.7 in the Appendix). As a result, the youth migration balance markedly improved in the 2018–2020 period compared to the preceding years. The question is, however, whether this decreasing trend will continue in the future.

Based on the youth migration trends in our four case study regions, the temporal relationship between the implementation of youth-oriented measures and the migration flows of 18- to 29-year-olds appears to be relatively limited. An association between a decrease in negative youth migration rates and the implementation of measures can be observed only for the Obersteiermark West region, where the negative trend in youth migration has improved since 2018.

On the other hand, the national averages for internal youth migration in rural areas in Germany and Austria indicate that overall, the negative trend in rural youth migration has improved since the mid-2010s. Thus, external trends that influence youth migration decisions must also be considered when assessing the impact of specific policy measures in the four case study regions.

This becomes obvious when looking at the 2015–2017 period, when the number of in-migrants was above average in all four case study regions, with the trend being most evident in the two German case study regions. The fluctuation of in-migrants in this period can be linked to the refugee movements of 2015. In this year, almost one and a half million refugees entered the European Union due to an escalation of the wars in Syria and Iraq, with Germany, Austria and Sweden being the main destination countries for refugees in this period (Pries, 2020). Furthermore, these countries followed a decentralised distribution policy for the accommodation of refugees (Weidinger et al., 2017). Hence, some refugees were registered, at least temporarily, as residents of rural administrative districts. In both Germany and Austria, refugees were registered in initial reception centres before being distributed to more permanent housing. Thus, they appear in the statistics for internal – not for international – migration.

In addition, in recent years, studies have also examined the reasons why people stay in the countryside (Gruber, 2021; Mærsk et al., 2021; Stockdale et al., 2018). The increase in the immobility of young people can be explained in part by rising housing costs in urban areas (Stawarz et al., 2021), as well as by the emergence of ICT and the associated opportunities for remote working (Cooke and Shuttleworth, 2018). Moreover, some young people may have decided to stay because they were benefiting from location-specific insider advantages (Mærsk et al., 2021).

While the effects of youth-oriented measures on the migration decisions of 18- to 29-year-olds seem to be rather limited, the migration balances among 30- to 49-year-olds have been improving since the early 2010s. This is especially true for the two German case study regions of Hochsauerlandkreis and Freyung-Grafenau. When additionally considering the migration rate of people under age 18, it appears that the in-migrants who are moving to these regions are mainly families. Hence, the trend towards family-oriented counter-urbanisation in recent years that studies on rural Europe have found (Haartsen and Thissen, 2014; Hansen and Aner, 2017; Mulder et al., 2020a) can also be observed in the two German case study regions.

In the Hochsauerlandkreis and in the district of Freyung-Grafenau, both the number of family-oriented in-migrants and the number of out-migrants in the under 18 and the 30–49 age groups started to increase in the early 2010s, with 2015 (Hochsauerlandkreis) and 2016/2017 (Freyung-Grafenau) being statistical outliers (see Tables A.8 and A.9 in the Appendix). Nevertheless, the overall number of in-migrants was greater than the number of out-migrants in the most recent decade. For the Freyung-Grafenau district, it can even be concluded that family-oriented counter-urbanisation compensated for youth out-migration. The Bavarian region profited from the in-migration as well as the return migration of young families, as the number of such migrants was even higher than the number of youth out-migrants. For the two Austrian case study regions, the number of in-migrants aged 30 to 49 did not outweigh the number of out-migrants in the same age category in the 2005–2020 period. Here, the internal migration balance of 30- to 49-year-olds remained negative, even in the 2010s (see Tables A.10 and A.11 in the Appendix). In all four case study regions, the development of the internal migration rates of 30- to 49-year-olds was below the national averages for rural regions.

Based on the available data and the research methods we applied, we could not identify a causal relationship between the measures implemented to encourage youth-oriented regional development and actual migration levels. In the three case study regions of Hochsauerlandkreis, Freyung-Grafenau and Pinzgau, the out-migration rates have remained stable in this age group, even after a more systematised approach to youth-oriented regional development was applied through the implementation of key projects. We observed a decrease in youth out-migration only in the Obersteiermark West region since 2018. However, due to the short period of time in which this development has emerged, the question of whether this trend will continue over the long term arises. On the other hand, youth in-migration has also increased in all four case study regions. Furthermore, there has been a positive development in family-oriented in-migration in the two German case study regions since the initial implementation of the youth-oriented regional development measures. Thus, further elaboration of the potential association between the realisation of a youth-oriented regional development strategy and an increase in in-migration and return migration is needed.

The migration data suggest that internal migration is also affected by external societal trends, such as the refugee movement of 2015 or an overall trend towards counter-urbanisation. The impact of a youth-oriented regional development approach overlaps with the effects of other social dynamics. Overall, more in-depth research is needed to provide a reliable assessment of the impact of youth-oriented policies.