The determinants of internal mobility in Italy, 1995-2006: A comparison of Italians and resident foreigners

OBJECTIVE In this paper, we study the determinants of internal migration in Italy from 1995 to 2006. METHODS To conduct this investigation, we applied an augmented version of the gravity model to the migratory flows of Italians and resident foreigners. In addition to the classic determinants of migration-i. e., the sizes of populations and the distance between places-the model considered a possible autocorrelation of flows and a set of socioeconomic and demographic explanatory variables that may influence migratory flows. RESULTS Different results were obtained for the two subpopulations. Among the Italians studied, both the economic conditions and the demographic features of regions were found to have operated as both push and pull determinants of migratory flows, although the demographic characteristics were shown to have affected migratory flows to a lesser extent. Among the resident foreigners studied, the demographic characteristics of the regions did not appear to have acted as push factors, but they were found to have had an effect as a pull determinant. While the economic conditions of the destination regions were shown to have been particularly important in attracting the resident foreigners, the economic conditions of the sending regions were not found to have had a clear-cut effect on the decision to leave.