The impact of internal migration on italian fertility

Michael J. White, Brown University
Anna Paterno, Università di Bari
Giuseppe Gabrielli, Università di Bari

Our primary objective in this paper is to analyze the impact of regional context and geographical mobility on fertility in a large, nationally representative sample of Italian women. We examine the effect of age and cohort, as well as other individual traits, characteristics of the origin and potential destination and the migratory event itself. In this paper we use data coming from the “Italian Households Panel”, a prospective panel nationally representative survey. We conduct a first descriptive analysis to show the main characteristics and the reproductive behaviour of female migrants according to age at migration, educational level, place of birth, occupational status, etc. In a second step, we employ multivariate techniques to examine the determinants of fertility in the presence of several controls. These analysis will show the effects of migration on short, medium and long term ferility and the existence of mechanisms of disruption and selection in the population.