Migration and the middle-class youth in Tunisia: An adaptive strategy coping with the Covid-19 crisis

Abstract

This article aims to identify the informal social protection mechanisms activated by the Tunisian population to cope with the COVID crisis and to see if migration could constitute an adaptation strategy. This work also proposes a characterisation of the different strategies identified, in particular according to the social category of belonging, in order to socially differentiate those relating to migration. Based on the COVID-19 MENA Monitor Household Survey data from the Economic Research Forum for Tunisia in February 2021, we implement mixed classification techniques to identify the different social categories of the Tunisian society and also the different adaptive strategies implemented by the population in the face of the crisis. Among the eight strategies identified, migration is mobilised around two different mechanisms and constitutes a socially marked strategy. The urban youth from the ‘middle class of self-employed and entrepreneurs’ was more frequently able to benefit from remittances from relatives abroad, whilst relatively educated rural young men from the ‘lower middle class’ more often resorted to internal migration to cope with the crisis.