doi: 10.1111/imig.

12554

Post-2008 Multi-Sited Household Practices:

Between Morocco, Spain and Norway
Dominique Jolivet*

ABSTRACT

The recent outmigration patterns from Southern Europe since the outbreak of the global eco-
nomic crisis have interested many migration researchers. Despite their long migration history
towards Europe, little is known about the onward migration of the Moroccan-born, yet this
group was one of the most affected by the recession. Furthermore, studies on onward migra-
tion tend to focus on the individual perspective and overlook the non-economic factors that
shape migration decisions. This article focuses on Moroccan-born migrants who, after several
years in Spain, migrated to Norway after 2008. Through analysis of ten semi-structured inter-
views and fieldwork observations, onward migration practices are studied from the perspective
of broader dynamics at the household level, which combine different types of migration and
non-migration. Looking beyond the economic factors that triggered remigration, the article
contributes to the discussion on onward migration, stressing its non-linear character and insert-
ing it in wider multi-sited household projects in constant change.

INTRODUCTION

Ten years after the outbreak of the 2008 global economic crisis (GEC) its consequences are still
felt in many EU member states. The GEC has led to transformations within the European migration
system, increasing the South-North intra-EU migration flows. In Spain, one of the countries with
the highest unemployment rates in the OECD since the beginning of the crisis (OECD, 2017a),
post-2008 migration has been characterized by an initial reduction in migration inflows and a pro-
gressive increase in outmigration (Kaczmarczyk and Stanek, 2016). Data on migration outflows
from Spain are limited and inaccurate (Domingo and Sabater, 2013; Gonzalez-Ferrer, 2013; Dom-
ingo and Blanes, 2015), but researchers agree that those who leave are mainly foreign-born
migrants who return to their country of origin or migrate onwards to a third country (Domingo and
Blanes, 2015; Kaczmarczyk and Stanek, 2016). This trend is not surprising if we consider that the
unemployment rates are higher among the foreign-born (OECD, 2017a).
One of the groups most affected by the recession in Spain were the Moroccan-born. They reached
a 50 per cent unemployment rate in 2011 (Colectivo IOE, 2012b: 192). However, their outmigration
rate is lower than for other migrant groups (Domingo and Sabater, 2013). Additionally, before and
after 2008, returns to Morocco are often conceived as temporary, to cope with unemployment in
Spain or to perform economic activities in Morocco (Cohen and Berriane, 2011; Capote, 2016). The
trend amongst the Moroccan-born is to remain in Europe, as it was the case after the oil crisis in the
1970s (de Haas, 2014). Alternatively, an increasing number of Moroccan-born are migrating
onwards within the Schengen area. Estimates reveal that 18 per cent of the Moroccan nationals who

* Universidad de Almeria, Almer
ıa, Spain

© 2019 The Author

International Migration © 2019 IOM
International Migration
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. ISSN 0020-7985
2 Jolivet

left Spain between 2008 and 2013 moved to another EU country (Domingo and Blanes, 2015). Data
also suggest that more Moroccan-born migrants with Spanish citizenship migrate within the EU than
to Morocco, especially to Belgium and France (Domingo and Sabater, 2013). However, the increas-
ing intra-EU onward migration of Moroccan-born migrants from Spain remains understudied.
Despite the extensive migration history of Moroccans within Europe, research on onward migration
has tended to focus on refugees (Nielsen, 2004; Lindley and Van Hear, 2007; Kleist, 2009; Van
Liempt, 2011a,b) and people born in Latin America (Herrera, 2012; McIlwaine, 2012; Mas Giralt,
2017; Ramos, 2018). In Spain, even before 2007, the unemployment rates of the Moroccan-born
were higher than for the rest of the foreign-born. About 70 per cent of active men and women of
Moroccan origin were already in a precarious position – they were unemployed, they worked with a
temporary or low-quality permanent contract1 or they were low income self-employed (Colectivo
IOE, 2012a: 23). Therefore, studying the onward migration of the Moroccan-born can contribute to
our understanding of their living and working conditions after 2008 and how they react to these.
This article is an attempt to advance the understanding of onward migration processes focusing
on the case of Moroccan-born migrants who moved from Spain to Norway after 2008. It examines
the migration aspirations and decisions of ten Moroccan-born migrants collected through qualitative
semi-structured interviews. The article stresses the non-linear character of onward migration and
inserts it in wider multi-sited household projects. It moves away from fixed understandings of the
migration project and considers it instead as a process in constant redefinition (Boyer, 2005) and
re-routing (Schapendonk et al., 2018).
The article contributes to the study of onward migration in three ways. First, the article studies a
group of onward migrants that remains understudied. Second, it looks beyond the facilitating role of
migration networks that often play a key role in onward migration (Toma and Castagnone, 2015;
McGarrigle and Ascens~ao, 2018). Moroccan onward migrants from Spain tend to move to EU coun-
tries where they are likely to have migration networks. Norway is a less common destination for
Moroccan migrants and represents an opportunity to explore other factors shaping onward migration
than migration networks. The article focuses instead on migrants’ individual and collective priorities
and their perceptions of structural and contextual differences between countries in terms of employ-
ment, income, welfare regimes and quality of life. Third, several studies highlight the importance of
family dynamics and gendered roles and opportunities in onward migration (Herrera, 2012; Toma
and Castagnone, 2015; Della Puppa, 2018; Moret, 2018; Ortensi and Barbiano di Belgiojoso, 2018;
Ramos et al., 2018). This article contributes to this literature suggesting a theoretical framework to
study gendered multi-sited household practices. Existing migration theories could provide useful
frameworks to understand intra-EU onward migration – among others those that focus on structural
differences between countries, and those on migration strategies at household level (Lindley and Van
Hear, 2007). Likewise, insights from the study of onward migration processes could enrich existing
theories. The article applies the new economics of labour migration (NELM) approach to study
onward migration from a household perspective. The NELM approach explains outmigration from
developing countries as a collective strategy to spread income resources and risks geographically
(Stark, 1991). The article combines the NELM framework with the idea of simultaneity in transna-
tional social fields (Levitt and Schiller, 2004) and takes into account that gendered identities, social
norms and expectations affect men and women’s migration decision-making differently and the fact
that gendered preferences within the household can converge or be opposed (Hoang, 2011).
The rest of the article starts by reviewing the literature on post-2008 intra-EU onward migration.
Then, it conceptualizes onward migration as part of broader practices at the household level that
combine different types of migration and non-migration. The third section describes the theoretical
framework to understand such multi-sited household practices. The fourth section outlines the
empirical data used in the analysis and explains how it was collected. The last three sections before
the conclusion explore the (non)migration dynamics of Moroccan-born onward migrants and other
household members after the outbreak of the GEC.

© 2019 The Author. International Migration © 2019 IOM

 Post-2008 Multi-Sited Household Practices 3

THE STUDY OF INTRA-EU ONWARD MIGRATION PROCESSES

Recent onward migration from Southern Europe towards other countries within the EU/EEA could
be described as “reactive and previously unplanned” (Mas Giralt, 2017: 4); a strategy among many
others that migrants use to cope with the effects of the global economic crisis (Herrera, 2012;
Lafleur and Stanek, 2017; Della Puppa, 2018; Ortensi and Barbiano di Belgiojoso, 2018; Pereira
Esteves et al., 2018; Ramos, 2018), taking advantage of their evolving migration networks and the
mobility rights they have acquired with EU citizenship (Mas Giralt, 2017: 8). Onward migration
after naturalization has led researchers to question the links between citizenship and settlement and
explore the changing meaning of citizenship (Danaj and C ßaro, 2016; Della Puppa and Sredanovic,
2017; Ramos, 2017; Ortensi and Barbiano di Belgiojoso, 2018).
More generally, onward migration is one of many practices that migrants put in place to improve
their economic, social and cultural situation in Europe and to fulfill their lifestyle ideals. As such,
onward migration is an interplay between integration and transnationalism: a practice that involves
integration (i.e. access to education, work, cultural practices, social networks, etc.) in more than
one nation-state in Europe and transnational practices not necessarily linked to the community of
origin but encompassing multiple places (Ahrens et al., 2016: 86).
This interplay between integration and transnationalism has been studied focusing on the
resources and capabilities that migrants build up over the migration process in different places
(Moser, 2011). Several authors have proposed old and new theoretical concepts such as Bourdieu’s
forms of capital (McIlwaine, 2012), mobility career (Martiniello and Rea, 2014), mobility capital
(Moret, 2017) or migratory knowledge (Ramos, 2018) to analyse the accumulation of resources,
experiences and capabilities over the migration process. Such concepts contribute to the theoriza-
tion of onward migration from an individual perspective. However, these frameworks are less use-
ful for analysing broader household dynamics in which household members combine onward
migration with temporary or long-term (im)mobilities and returns to previous places of residence,
and the causes of such arrangements.
Another way of looking at onward migration processes is therefore to analyse it from the per-
spective of the household and study how its members combine and spread obligations, resources
and experiences over different places simultaneously. The literature acknowledges the complex,
fluctuating and multi-sited – or translocal – character of many migrants’ lives (Horst, 2017; McGar-
rigle and Ascens~ao, 2018; Ramos, 2018). The effects of the GEC on income and employment
opportunities in migrant groups that were already in a precarious position before 2008 might have
triggered onward migration. However, the needs originating within the context of recession or inte-
gration coexist with other unrelated perceived needs and aspirations in areas such as education,
informal care, investments or the physical or cultural environment. In sum, marriage, parenthood,
educating children, gathering economic resources or caring for the elderly are different aspects of
forming and sustaining a household (Douglass, 2006) that happen successively or simultaneously
and sometimes shape between household members conflicting aspirations and decisions to stay put
or to migrate – and where to migrate.
It is taking this multi-sited angle that the next section explains the article’s theoretical framework
to understand the dynamic character of onward migration from a household perspective.

SIMULTANEITY, GENDERED IDENTITIES AND THE NELM FRAMEWORK

The NELM approach was initially developed to understand rural to urban migration and the effect
of income inequalities on migration. It conceptualizes migration as a project planned collectively
by individuals from the same household, family or community (Stark, 1991). It explains migration

© 2019 The Author. International Migration © 2019 IOM

4 Jolivet

as a way of geographically diversifying income resources in order to increase them, but primarily
to overcome feelings of relative deprivation. In the NELM approach, the accumulation of resources
through migration is also a way to manage risks that are not covered through institutional schemes
linked to failures in labour, credit and insurance markets (Lauby and Stark, 1988; Taylor, 1999).
More concretely, migration is a strategy to overcome those risks due to the lack of stability in
specific occupations of the labour market, those linked to productive activities or those related to
the loss of income due to unemployment, illness or retirement (Stark and Levhari, 1982; Lauby
and Stark, 1988; Massey et al., 1998). Besides managing risks, the diversification of income
through migration enables people to invest in education, productive activities or consumer goods
when they do not have access to credit in their places of residence due to failures in the credit mar-
ket (Massey et al., 1998; Taylor, 1999).
The NELM approach describes multi-sited practices that combine migration and immobility.
While some members of one household stay in the place of origin, others might move internally
within the country and others could migrate internationally (Massey et al., 1998). These premises
provide a framework to understand onward migration as non-linear movements in which several
members of a household are involved. This framework enables us to study different types of mobil-
ity that take place at the same time and to consider the possibility of “backwards” migration pro-
cesses to previous places of residence.
However, focusing on the place of origin, studies applying the NELM approach tend to over-
look (relative) deprivation, risks or investment plans elsewhere and the transnational, “pluri-local
frames of reference that structure everyday practices, social positions, biographical employment
projects and human identities” (Pries, 2005: 180) of many migrants and their families. The
NELM approach also neglects broader frames of reference built on multi-sited experiences and
the “individual (and unique) social and cultural repertoires of codes for behaviour, inherited,
learned, and acquired from various sources and influences, and which permit them to interact, at
different times and in different places, as functioning members of the different groups to which,
to varying degrees, they belong” (Walker, 2011: 169). Finally, even if studies utilizing the
NELM approach do not say much about where migrants return to (Cassarino, 2004), it is
assumed that the place of return is somewhere in the country of origin. This leaves little room
to consider returns to previous places of residence for onward migrants. It is therefore useful to
combine the NELM approach with the idea of simultaneity in onward migration processes
according to which:

Movement and attachment is not linear or sequential but capable of rotating back and forth and
changing direction over time. The median point on this gauge is not full incorporation but rather
simultaneity of connection. Persons change and swing one way or the other depending on the con-
text, thus moving our expectation away from either full assimilation or transnational connection but
some combination of both. (Levitt and Schiller, 2004: 1011)

Simultaneity allows investigating in which ways previous places of residence “continue to play a
critical role in migrants’ lives” (Levitt and Schiller, 2004: 1005). Additionally, in order to under-
stand who within the household moves or stays where and why we can draw on the idea that gen-
dered identity and social norms and expectations affect people’s abilities and agency in the
migration decision-making process (Hoang, 2011: 1442). Migrants and other household members
might experience ambivalence between what they aspire to as individuals and what they want or
are able to do according to their role within the household, the family or the broader community.
Taking into account the individual and social dimensions of identity helps us to understand such
ambivalences (Carling and Schewel, 2018).
The next section presents the data and methods used for this study on the post-2008 multi-sited
practices of Moroccan-born migrants from Spain.

© 2019 The Author. International Migration © 2019 IOM

 Post-2008 Multi-Sited Household Practices 5

DATA AND METHODS

This article is based on ten recorded interviews, bolstered by many informal conversations and
fieldwork observations. The data were collected between April 2016 and June 2017, mainly in Oslo
and in Barcelona (one interview). The qualitative semi-structured interviews were transcribed and
analysed using Nvivo 11. The interviews were part of a project that studied the role of welfare sys-
tems in destination and origin countries in migration patterns within and towards Europe.2 The
interviews explored the key factors shaping aspirations to migrate or to stay put. We included ques-
tions on the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents and their perceptions and experi-
ences of welfare provision. We also asked about the respondents’ family and contextual
background as well as on their migration trajectory. The interviews ended with questions on the
respondents’ future aspirations, their challenges and the uncertainties they faced.
The samples for this article were recruited through multiple snowballing techniques with several
entry points. The female interviewed in Barcelona was selected to include an onward migrant who,
after migrating to Oslo, had returned to Spain – because she failed to find a secure job in Norway.
The nine respondents interviewed in Oslo lived there and were recruited in Grønland, a central
multicultural area of the city that has been the entry point to Oslo for many migrants since the
1960s (Vassenden and Andersson, 2011). Some Moroccan-born migrants arrived there in the 1960s
and their descendants are running shops and cafeterias in Grønland. Nearby, the headquarters of
Caritas provide free help and advice to newly arrived migrants. These two facts might explain why
Moroccan-born onward migrants recently arrived from Spain or Italy tend to come to this part of
the city to do their shopping, have a coffee, socialize and eventually make contacts that could lead
to job opportunities. In Norway, the group of Moroccan-born who arrived after 2008 is small:
according to Statistics Norway, between 2007 and 2016, less than 1300 Moroccan-born migrants
arrived in Norway, more than the half registered in Oslo. Men from this group are difficult to
recruit due to their limited free time and their reluctance to participate in research studies. In the
case of women, the sampling barriers encountered were linked to their reduced presence in public
spaces. These circumstances make these migrants a hard-to-reach group that explain the small sam-
ple size of the study. Nevertheless, the socio-economic characteristics of our respondents are homo-
geneous and patterns could be identified and confirmed through many other, more informal
conversations and field observations.
The fieldwork revealed that within households, male spouses tend to pioneer onward migration
projects from Spain, while women often migrate to Norway at a later stage, once their partner is
more settled. This trend and the lower presence of women in the places where the fieldwork was
conducted made it hard to get a gender-balanced sample (only two women were interviewed). The
predominance of men’s experiences in the ensuing analysis may constitute a biased perspective to
this case study.
The findings are preliminary; they point to complex, multi-sited patterns of mobility to be con-
firmed with a larger study. The findings highlight angles of the NELM approach and in the theo-
rization of onward migration that remain underdeveloped – the study of onward migration from the
perspective of broader migration practices at household level and the role of non-economic factors
in migration decisions. Finally, the results shed light on how Moroccan-born migrants deeply
rooted in Spain experience remigration and the complexity of factors that lead to ambivalences and
reconsiderations of the migration project at individual and collective level.
Table 1 summarizes the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants. Most of them
migrated to Norway as EU citizens. The interviewees were aged between 29 and 50 upon arrival
and most of them have a primary or secondary level of education. Drawing on Ramos’ (2018), we
can distinguish two profiles of onward migrants – “mature, reluctant migrants” who had preferred
to stay in Spain and slightly more optimistic “mid-life, career advancement migrants”. Unlike in

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 6

TABLE 1
SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE INTERVIEWEES

Age upon
arrival Level of education Current administrative
Pseudonym in Norway Sex (completed) status in EU Family situation Last occupation

Adil 29 Male Primary Spanish citizenship Single, no children Carpenter (NO)

Aisha 32 Female Undergraduate Permanent resident Single (living with partner), Social worker (SP)
(Spain) no children
Hassan 39 Male Secondary Spanish citizenship Married, one child Cleaner (NO)
Jolivet

Ibrahim 50 Male Secondary Spanish citizenship Married, three children Cleaner (NO)
Jamal 38 Male Secondary Spanish citizenship Married, two children Construction labourer (NO)
Karim 29 Male Secondary Spanish citizenship Married, one child Waiter (SP
Faridah 39 Female Secondary Permanent resident Separated, no children Caretaker (SP)
(Spain)
Nabil 36 Male Primary Spanish citizenship Married, two children Construction labourer (NO)
Omar 50 Male Primary Spanish citizenship Married, two children Carwash labourer (NO)
Bilal 37 Male Primary Spanish citizenship Married, two children Factory labourer (NO)

© 2019 The Author. International Migration © 2019 IOM

 Post-2008 Multi-Sited Household Practices 7

Ramos (2008), most of the interviewees did not rely on migration networks to migrate and were
not only looking to improve their employment situation but also for advancements in their
resources of social protection. At the time of the interview, seven of them were married and had
children. Aside from the female interviewee in Spain who was employed as a social worker at the
time of the interview, all the respondents’ last work experience was in skilled and unskilled manual
occupations.
Before migrating to Norway for the first time, the participants had lived for between 11 and 31
years in Spain but previous onward migration experiences are also common (Table 2). Besides
Morocco, Spain and Norway, three of our respondents had lived in one or two other EU countries.
Three participants migrated internally in Morocco and seven in Spain. The migration trajectories
also reveal temporary returns to previous places of residence in Morocco (two cases) and in Spain
(four cases). Some of the participants were living in Norway with their partner and children. Others
lived in Oslo while the other household members were in Morocco or in Spain. These patterns
point out the multi-sited, non-linear and fluctuating character of onward migration processes men-
tioned earlier.
In the rest of the article we take the interviewees and the members of their households as units
of analysis and explore their migration practices. The next section starts describing how, at first
glance, the decision to migrate onwards seems a reaction to the gloomy socio-economic context in
Spain after several years of economic recession. It then uncovers a more complex mix of migration
aspirations.

MORE THAN ECONOMIC ASPIRATIONS TO MOVE ON TO NORWAY

The participants migrated to Norway some years after the outbreak of the economic crisis –
between 2011 and 2016. Half of them arrived in Norway for the first time in 2013, the year with
the highest rate of unemployment in Spain since 2008. This coincides with statistical observations
that outward migration of the Moroccan-born from Spain was actually higher in 2011 than just
after the outbreak of the GEC (Domingo and Sabater, 2013). It also matches with the data recorded
by Statistics Norway (2017). The interviews reveal that the consequences of the recession in Spain
and the subsequent job and income uncertainties were a main trigger in the decision to leave Spain.
Some interviews show how individual economic difficulties linked to the recession overlap with a
discontent with the wider environment, the anti-social character of some Spanish policies and the
official discourses on migration. For instance, Jamal run a halal meat and grocery shop in a town
in Galicia. Many of his customers were unable to afford their basic shopping during the reces-
sion. He saw his income decrease. In addition, Jamal was dissatisfied with the degraded social
environment:

(. . .) You are in the shop, a Spanish guy comes to ask for the bones (. . .) for the guts and tripe, he
comes and asks for the legs of the chicken to make soup. It hurts. One comes and tells you, “I
don0 t know for how long I haven0 t eaten meat”. [So I say] This is for free, I don0 t care, if I have it
I give it to them, and you see that the ones that are from Spain are having a hard time (. . .); and
then Rajoy [Prime Minister of Spain] comes and says “Spain is for the Spanish”. It makes me sad
that Spain is going through that because it is a country that doesn0 t deserve that.

If the GEC was the main trigger to leave Spain, the choice to move to Norway was mostly dri-
ven by a mixture of factors. Migration networks played only a reduced role in the country choice.
Only two participants knew somebody from Morocco in Oslo. The contacts in Oslo that another
three respondents had were not of Moroccan origin. The ideas that drove their country choice ran-
ged from the perception that in Norway it was easier to communicate in English than in other

© 2019 The Author. International Migration © 2019 IOM

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TABLE 2
CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICIPANTS’ MIGRATION PROJECTS

Social
networks Participant0 s Place of
Year first Year first in Oslo official residence of
arrival arrival before place of partner and
Pseudonym in Spain in Norway arrival residence children Participant’s migration trajectory

Adil 2000 2011 No Oslo (NO) Not applicable Kenitra (MO) - Tangier (MO) - Almeria (ES) - Barcelona
(ES) - Oslo (NO)
Aisha 2001 2014 Yes Barcelona (ES) Barcelona (ES) Tangier (MO) - Tetouan (MO) - Tangier (MO) - Alicante
(ES)- Barcelona (ES) - Tarragona (ES) - Barcelona (ES) -
Oslo (NO) - Barcelona (ES)
Jolivet

Hassan 1997 2013 Yes Oslo (NO) Oslo (NO) Rabat (MO) - Valencia (ES) - unknown (FR) - Valencia
(ES) - Mijas (ES) - Oslo (NO)
Ibrahim 1989 2015 No Oslo (NO) Ripollet (ES) Asilah (MO) - Larache (MO) - Tetouan (MO) - London
(UK) - Asilah (MO) - Mataro (ES) - Solsona (ES) - Ripol-
let (ES) - unknown (SE) - Oslo (NO)
Jamal 1999 2013 No Oslo (NO) Oslo (NO) Agadir (MO) - Sesimbra (PT) - Marin (ES) - Oslo (NO)
Karim 1999 2016 Yes Fuerteventura Tetouan (MO) Tetouan (MO) - Fuerteventura (ES) - Barcelona (ES) -
(ES) Fuerteventura (ES) - Oslo (NO)
Faridah 2002 2013 Yes Oslo (NO) Not applicable Tangier (MO) - Granada (ES) - Oslo (NO)
Nabil 1996 2013 Unknown Oslo (NO) Oslo (NO) Taourirt (MO) - Huelva (ES) - Murcia (ES) - Logron
~o (ES) -

© 2019 The Author. International Migration © 2019 IOM

Girona (ES) - Logron~ o (ES)- Pamplona (ES) - Oslo (NO)
Omar 1983 2014 No Oslo (NO) Oslo (NO) Tetouan (MO) - Ceuta (ES) - Palma de Mallorca (ES) -
Oslo (NO)
Bilal 1998 2013 Yes Oslo (NO) Nador (MO) Nador (MO) - Lanzarote (ES) - Oslo (NO)
 Post-2008 Multi-Sited Household Practices 9

countries, to images of white landscapes that offered opportunities for skiing (this was the case of
Aisha, an engineer). For many, Norway was the country of opportunities at a time of widespread
recession in the rest of Europe. Prospects in the job market and in terms of income stability –
something that they never achieved in Spain or they lost with the recession (see also Herrera,
2012) – also played a role. Indeed, whereas Spain attained an average unemployment rate of 26
per cent in 2013, the rate in Norway was 3.4% (OECD, 2016, 2017b). Many research participants
perceived Norway as a country with a more developed welfare state that could guarantee their
social rights and a good quality of life after retirement. This attraction towards a “stronger” welfare
state within Europe supports the welfare magnet hypothesis (Borjas, 1999) and has been observed
in other studies on onward migration from Southern Europe such as Della Puppa and King (2018).
Discovering a new place was also part of their thinking. The complex drivers to move to Norway
are nicely illustrated by Adil’s motivations. Adil is a carpenter who invested in a property in Barce-
lona province before the Spanish property bubble collapsed. As happened to almost 20 per cent of
the migrant population with a mortgage in 2008 (Colectivo IOE, 2012b), he had difficulties in
repaying his loan due to the income loss brought by the GEC. Therefore, Adil decided to stop the
payment of his instalments, hand back the keys of this property and migrate. Nevertheless, the
choice of Norway was linked to other reasons:

One day [my flatmate] said there are better women up north, better wages, and better life. You can
work for one year and then you get unemployment benefits for one year for example. I always
wanted to work more than anything though. There, he said, they make wooden houses. You’ll
always have work, not like anywhere else. I started to get sick of all of these half contracts here
and there [in Spain].

In sum, searching to spread economic risks in times of recession is not the only motivation
behind onward migration processes. Onward migrants also aspire to increase their formal social
protection, social rights and quality of life. Non-economic factors also play a role –the next section
explains gender dynamics in the participants’ migration practices.

GENDER IN MULTI-SITED PRACTICES

The decision to migrate onwards was not necessarily the preferred choice of the interviewees. Con-
sistent with the NELM framework, households combined mobility and immobility strategies to
cope with the economic recession in Spain. They often tried other alternatives in Spain before
thinking about re-migrating – migrating internally, increasing short distance mobilities in Spain,
reorganizing housing arrangements or combining formal and informal sources of income (Herrera,
2012; Della Puppa, 2018; Pereira Esteves et al., 2018). Hassan, for example, persevered in his aspi-
ration to stay in Malaga combining welfare benefits with undeclared odd jobs in painting or
removals for Northern European retirees settled there. He did so until he was offered a declared job
in Norway. In such cases, immobility and migration practices happen successively.
As mentioned earlier, and corroborating studies on other migrant groups migrating onwards from
Southern Europe such as Herrera (2012) and Pereira Esteves et al. (2018), within households the
male partner often migrates first. Once he has achieved relative stability in terms of income and
housing, the female partner and the children “follow”, as in the case of Ibrahim: “I move first, and
when things are good, she can come later, because there is no need for me to go somewhere where
I don0 t know and bring my wife, no. It0 s difficult, my wife can0 t sleep in the street. No, first me
alone and afterwards we0 ll see”.
Gendered obligations and expectations partially explain such household dynamics – usually, in
the Maghreb, men are expected to provide for the family (Van Dalen et al., 2005; Ghannam, 2011;

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10 Jolivet

Hoang, 2011). Men’s predominance in onward migration could also be explained by their greater
flexibility compared to their spouses in terms of employment and geographical mobility because of
women’s greater reproductive responsibilities (Herrera, 2012).
Men “pioneering” the onward migration practices could be framed within Douglass’ (2006) idea
of “global householding” in which different aspects of forming and sustaining a household can be
spread in different countries. Within this framework, the household dynamics change due to its
life-cycle and because of external factors such as the global economic crisis. These changes are
likely to affect differently the aspirations and decisions to stay or to move of each member of the
household. Aside from the effect of gender, differences within the household are also partly
explained by generational perspectives on obligations and expectations (Huijsmans, 2014).
Spouses of onward migrants are also active members of the household when they “remain” with
their children elsewhere. From this perspective, the combination of migration and immobility prac-
tices occurs simultaneously. I found that households adopted two types of multi-sited practices.
Some combined onward migration to Norway with temporary immobility in Spain. The immobility
project was for a short time in some cases and for a longer period in others. Other households pre-
ferred onward migration combined with a temporary return to Morocco. Consistent with the NELM
approach, the main motivation behind such multi-sited practices is to spread risks, reducing the
impacts of the onward migration project, and to hedge against its eventual failure. Spreading
the household members geographically is also a way to reduce the initial costs of the relocation in
the expensive city of Oslo.
In some cases, as Ahrens (2013) observed in the case of Nigerian onward migrants from Spain,
some household members remain in Spain to avoid disruptions in the children’s education. This
was the case in Ibrahim’s household. One of his daughters was about to start studying at university
in Barcelona. Besides the higher cost of moving the whole family to Oslo, moving to a non–Span-
ish-speaking country would have prevented his daughter from having a smooth start in her studies.
In other cases, the initial immobility of the spouse in Spain is linked to the time of residence
required in order to get the Spanish citizenship – female spouses often migrate to Spain later than
their husbands and therefore get the EU citizenship later.
Some households also opted to return to Morocco because it was less expensive than remaining
in Spain. For others, it was a way to make the most of the transitory period until the pioneer mem-
ber settled in Norway. For example, when Omar migrated to Oslo, his wife and two children
moved for two years to Tetouan and lived with his mother. This choice was motivated by the lack
of informal support that his mother had compared to his wife’s family members: “my dad died, my
mother was alone, so I preferred that they stayed with my mother”.
The needs and priorities of different family members are likely to lead to conflicting (im)mobility
aspirations within the household (de Haas and Fokkema, 2010; Harpviken, 2014). Likewise, differ-
ences between individual migration aspirations and social expectations and obligations lead to
ambivalence, frustration and conflict (Carling, 2008; Hoang, 2011; Carling and Schewel, 2018).
Ambivalences in migration aspirations and decisions are also influenced by contextual opportunities
and constraints (Carling and Schewel, 2018). The next section analyses the ambivalences in the
interviewees under study.

AMBIVALENCE IN MULTI-SITED PRACTICES

As part of the migration decision-making process, ambivalences play a role in the constant redefini-
tion and re-routing (Boyer, 2005; Schapendonk et al., 2018) of migration projects. We can distin-
guish between ambivalences in migration aspirations and migration practices. We can also
differentiate between ambivalences at individual and household level. There are strong links

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 Post-2008 Multi-Sited Household Practices 11

between these four heuristic categories. The following paragraphs provide some examples of such
interrelations in the participants of this study.
The experiences of Jamal and Karim illustrate ambivalences at household level between the
migration aspirations of different members. Jamal’s wife preferred to remain in Spain not only
to ensure that her children’s schooling was not disrupted but also because she felt at home
there. Jamal’s priority was to minimize the costs during the transitory period before his wife
and two children could join him in Oslo. Additionally, in Morocco he could afford to pay for
a private nursery school. He saw there the opportunity for his oldest daughter to improve her
Arabic and French language skills. Finally, while Jamal decided to circulate between Norway
and Spain, his wife and children were in Morocco and travelled to Spain during the holidays.
The ambivalent migration aspirations lead in this case to circular returns to the previous place
of residence.
Jamal’s priorities weighed more than his wife’s aspirations to stay in Spain. This could be
explained by the fact that “individuals in the same household are usually unequal in terms of bar-
gaining power in decision-making or, in other words, in their capacity to exercise agency in collec-
tive strategies” (Hoang, 2011: 1442). Nevertheless, men’s preferences do not always dominate in
the migration decision-making process. Karim did not even want to migrate. He was able to navi-
gate the recession in Fuerteventura by working in the tourism industry. However, his wife, with a
degree in chemistry, was not able to find a satisfying job in the limited economy of the Canary
Islands. Moreover, the couple were not satisfied with the public education and health services in
the island and the inadequate public infrastructure had become a bigger concern since their daugh-
ter was born. Thus, life-course factors and the collective interest of the household outweighed Kar-
im’s individual immobility aspirations.
Life-course factors also played a role in Aisha’s individual migration aspirations. In her case, the
social and cultural repertoires acquired in different places and shaping her identity and belonging
(Pries, 2005; Walker, 2011) caused ambivalences in her long-term migration project. Aisha con-
trasted the advantages of Norway’s education system and economy with her sense of belonging to
Spain and Morocco: “If tomorrow I want to become a mother, where I would like my children
studying? The fantastic plan is Norway, but are you willing to live in Norway? Many factors go
into consideration, including in Spain (. . .). There are many things that limit you (. . .). There are
things that you cannot buy with money, you know”.
An example of ambivalence in migration practices is when, for instance, the decision to
migrate is aimed at guaranteeing the household unity in Europe but in order to accomplish it,
some members end up migrating onwards (Della Puppa, 2018). Ambivalences and contradictions
are also observed when migrants officially live in one place whereas they are actually in another.
Besides the need to be officially registered in Spain to fulfil the residency requirement to get the
EU citizenship, relatively short trips to Norway during holiday or unemployment periods allow
new migrants to secure their access to the Spanish social protection system while they prepare
for a longer term move to Norway. For instance, if Jamal had registered officially in Oslo upon
arrival, he would have lost his social rights in Spain, while in Norway, he would not have made
the necessary tax contributions to be included in its welfare system. In such cases, multi-sited
practices are a way to balance site-specific opportunities and constraints in immigration and
social policies and illustrate the “reverse” welfare magnet effect of the areas of outmigration
(Mahendra, 2014).
Accessing the Norwegian welfare system, however, did not guarantee a good quality of life.
Long working hours, night shifts, high costs of living, limited social life, lack of quality time with
the family and the long dark winters were factors undermining participants’ quality of life in Oslo.
For many, the choice between material security in Norway and subjective well-being in Spain was
an additional cause of ambivalence.

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12 Jolivet

CONCLUSION

This article explored the post-2008 onward migration of Moroccan-born migrants from Spain to
Norway. Studies on onward migration tend to privilege the individual perspective of onward
migrants. Instead, this analysis focused on the household perspective. The study applied the NELM
approach to understand multi-sited practices in which household members combine onward migra-
tion, immobility and returns to Morocco and Spain. The NELM approach was complemented with
the idea of simultaneity in transnational contexts according to which “movement and attachment is
not linear or sequential but capable of rotating back and forth and changing direction over time”
(Levitt and Schiller, 2004: 1011). The effect of (gendered) identities, obligations and expectations
in migration was also taken into account. With this theoretical framework the article explored who
remigrates where and why.
The NELM approach is mainly applied to quantitative studies. Using the NELM approach in a
qualitative study on onward migration enabled us to highlight underdeveloped aspects of this
framework. First, the preliminary findings of the study indicate that migrants’ multi-sited prac-
tices are not only aimed at maximizing income and spreading economic risks in times of eco-
nomic recession. Multi-sited household practices can also be an attempt to spread and increase
formal and informal social protection resources, rights and quality of life. Such practices are also
a way to balance ambivalences in individual and collective aspirations. Second, migration is not
necessarily a temporary project. Instead, multi-sited household practices can be conceptualized as
a process in constant change. Additionally, multi-sited practices include “backwards” migration
processes and migrants do not only return to the country of origin, they also return to previous
places of residence. Finally, the study stresses the role of non-economic factors in migration –
overlooked in the NELM approach. Multi-sited household practices are motivated by changing
external factors that shape the opportunities and constraints of each member of the household dif-
ferently. Simultaneously, such practices are conditioned by internal gendered dynamics within the
household, perceived obligations and expectations of men and women, life-course considerations
and senses of belonging. Finally, the study illustrates that the NELM approach, initially devel-
oped to understand rural to urban migration in developing countries and the effect of income
inequalities on migration, can be applied to contexts of intra-EU migration and inequality in
more developed welfare states.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This article has been published, thanks to the financial support of the NORFACE Transnational
Research Programme on Welfare State Futures to the MobileWelfare project and to matched fund-
ing provided by the Oxford Martin School of the University of Oxford. The views expressed here
are those of the author. They are not necessarily those of MobileWelfare, the ODID of the Univer-
sity of Oxford or NORFACE. I am grateful to Marie Godin for her feedback on the draft of this
article.

NOTES

1. Low quality contract refers here to part-time employment, permanent seasonal contracts, moonlighting and
contracts with unsatisfactory working conditions for the employee (Colectivo IOE, 2012b).
2. Further details: http://www.mobile-welfare.org/

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 Post-2008 Multi-Sited Household Practices 13

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