Geographic Mobility and Occupational Achievement: Examining the Role of Italian Cities as ‘Escalator’ Regions

Rocco Molinari , University of Bologna
Roberto Impicciatore, University of Bologna
Nazareno Panichella, University of Milan

While a long-standing tradition of European studies has stressed the importance of cities in fostering the occupational mobility, in terms of ‘escalator’ regions, internal migration in Italy has been mainly studied through a North-South divide. In this study, we combine these two perspectives, considering multiple trajectories of geographic mobility towards Northern metropolitan cities of Italy, from (Southern and Northern) cities, towns and suburbs, and rural areas. Firstly, we investigate the selection of internal migration movements towards Italian Northern large cities, considering which individual factors are mainly associated with different migratory trajectories. Secondly, we explore the relationship between migration and occupational achievement, considering whether occupational status is triggered by different forms of internal geographic mobility. We use data from the Italian Households Longitudinal Survey (IHLS), which is a panel survey divided into five waves collected between 1997 and 2005. IHLS data allow a multi-sited comparison between stayers in the destination context, non-migrants in the origin context, and migrants. We develop random intercept models on the individual time-varying occupational qualification, considering as main independent variable the interaction between origin (fixed) and current (time-varying) place of residence.

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 Presented in Session 41. Flash session Internal Migration: temporalities, socio-economic and health outcomes