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The paper presents research carried out among young university graduates from a rural region (the Jura canton in Switzerland) and discusses three central results. First, young graduates’ migrations are in the majority directed towards urban areas ; they are nevertheless accompanied by non-negligible return migration. Second, young graduates’ propensity to return to their home region is a selective phenomenon that varies according to their socio-familial, migratory and professional trajectories. Finally, internal migration is much more than an automatic response to differentials in the labour market ; it relates to a variable combination of factors related to professional opportunities, social ties and living environment. These results are more general in scope and could be integrated and tested in further research on other forms of internal migration.