Internal migration and educational attainment in Italy. An analysis of the 2001 Population Census

Angela Ferruzza, Instituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT)
Frank Heins, IRPPS.CNR, Rome
Mariangela Verrascina, Instituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT)

The contribution aims at exploring the importance of educational attainment regarding internal migration in Italy. In 2001 the Italian population census included for the first time the question regarding the residence one year earlier. The first part of the contributions deals with the information obtained by this question. The diffusion of multiple residences in Italy, certainly limits the quality of the data. In the second part the inter-provincial migration patterns of the population in the economically active age group 20 to 64 is analysed. A first focus of the analysis is the impact of educational attainment on the intensity and timing of internal migration. The authors try to confirm the hypotheses of a link between interregional mobility and educational attainment. A second focus of the analysis is on the outcome of selective internal migration according to educational attainment in origin and destination areas. The aim is to evaluate the importance of the selectivity of inter-provincial migration patterns as an indication of the mobility of social capital. The detailed census data, never analysed so far, allow to verify the hypothesis of a selectivity of migration flows according to educational attainment and a subsequent gain of social capital for the provinces with a strong economic growth and a continuing loss of social capital in the disadvantaged provinces of the Mezzogiorno. The role played by educational attainment in the process of internal migration is investigated using standard tools of migration analysis. Gender and age group specific migration rates by broad categories of educational attainment will be calculated. To analyse provincial brain gains or brain drains net-migration rates and the measure of demographic efficiency according to broad categories of educational attainment are applied.