Sociologists have examined recession from a migration angle, where studies have revealed the hidden reasons behind movement (Cairns 2013; Spitzer and Piper 2014; Bygnes 2017). Cairns (2013) conducted a mixed method study of 400 undergraduates in Belfast following the crash to find a dichotomy between the high rate of the intention to migrate and low rate of substantive plans made to leave. He identifies the blocker in the dearth of the ‘‘right’ mobility enabling habitus’ to access mobility. Bygnes (2017) qualitative study by maps the highly skilled people, often already employed individuals who left Spain for Norway after 2008. These individuals distance themselves from motivations related to the crisis to retain status and avoid stigma. The concept of ‘anomie’ is used by Bygnes to understand individual motivations in relation to the national, in contrast to Cairns application of Bourdieusian mobility related to the familial. Spitzer and Piper’s (2014) study looks at the disempowered migration of female Filipino migrants returning home, identifying the gendered nature of low-wage migration caused by global recession. For this group she argues it is the ongoing impact of neoliberal globalization through ‘sustained multiple crises’ that has impacted migration, rather than the single moment in the financial crash.

Sociologists have pointed to the wider problems of neoliberalism in discussion of recession (Fraser 2013; Berry 2015). Nancy Fraser (2013) has called for a new radicalised feminism to tackle the crisis. In her critique of second-wave feminism she likens the movement to the ‘handmaiden’ of neoliberal economics on three indirect contributions: through critique of the “family wage” to legitimate “flexible capitalism”; rejecting “economism” and politicising “the personal” and the critique of welfare-state paternalism. Berry has identified the role of the media in relation to neoliberalism, in allowing the dominance of these perspectives in the media in the years 2009/10, with the result that recession: ‘was defined as a problem of public rather than private debt, which necessitated sharp cuts to public spending’ (2015:15).

The changes to individual and collective behaviour during recession have been documented (Keating et al 2013; Purdam et al 2015; Layte and Landy 2017). At the level of consumerism, Keating et al (2013) study focused on changing attitudes to consumption since the Celtic Tiger years (1995-2007) and into the Irish economic collapse. The study finds emotional and behavioural strategies to cope with these changes which stand out from existent literature: new categories of resignation, and remembrance of times past standing. Purdam et al’s (2015) UK city case study on ‘food insecurity’ highlights the diversity of individuals including professionals using food banks as a ‘last resort’ since the crash and associated feelings of shame. While Layte and Landy (2017) mixed method study looks at the temporal pattern