Donatella Lanari, Luca Pieroni (p), Andrea Crippa

Tomaz Dentinho

In this paper, we investigate internal migrants self-selection for 1951 and 1980 birth-cohorts using conscripts data which captured the massive South to North internal migration in Italy during the period of economic boom, when the north of Italy experienced a huge economic development in contrast to the south which lagged behind. In particular, adopting a similar approach to Spitzer and Zimran (2018) we proxy migrants “quality” by their height, and quantify the selection of southern immigration to the north Italy by comparing migrants heights to the height distributions of their populations of origin. The underlying idea of our empirical strategy is that, the taller were migrants compare to their populations of origin, the more positive, on average, was their selection into migration on the basis of characteristics positively correlated to individuals' human capital, such as education, health, occupational skills, income and cognitive abilities. Positive self-selection of migrants could explain regional economic imbalances through a human capital drain from southern regions. This approach is grounded on a large number of studies that have shown that height can be considered an excellent indicator of the biological standard of living of the population, since it captures important aspects of human welfare as highlighted before (Tanner, 1992; Steckel, 1995). To address this question we estimate a regression of the countrywide z-score on a set of different indicators. The mean of the national z-score is negative and strongly statistically significant, indicating that the average southern immigrant was 0.096, 1951 cohort, and 0.159, 1980 cohort, standard deviations shorter than the mean of his all-Italian cohorts of origin. What emerges is that the southern migrants, cohort 1951, were 0.60 centimeters shorter than the national stature. While for the 1980 cohort the gap exceeds one centimeter. On the other hand, using local z-score as dependent variable we shed a new light on the relationship between migrant self-selection. We find that Italian migrants were, on average, 0.108 (1951 cohort) and 0.123 (1980 cohort) standard deviations taller than their province-cohort means, and this difference is statistically significant. That is, a stature increase of one standard deviation will result in an expected stature increase of about 0.66 cm for 1951 cohort and 0.79cm for 1980 cohort. Basically, individuals leaving southern Italy during the period 1951-1980, on average, were 0.73 cm taller respect their province-cohort of origin.

Miquel Correa (p)

Luca Pieroni

In this paper, I examine how exposure to working from home (WFH) contributes to the out-migration decisions of the working-age population of large Swedish cities. Studying the effects of remote work on migration is important because this employment arrangement is becoming increasingly common, as highlighted by the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, in terms of regional policy and territorial governance, WFH has theoretical potential to contribute to the reversal of the depopulation trend for peripheral regions. Based on an adjusted WFH index for occupations at the 3-digit level and registered Swedish microdata of individuals in the period 2015-2021, the results of this study show that exposure to remote work during the pandemic significantly increased the likelihood of moving out of large cities, and of doing it beyond the suburbs. The results highlight the new-found relevance of the ability to WFH as an occupational characteristic that may potentially affect the residential location of individuals. Nevertheless, the small size of the effects, usually below or approximately 1 percentage point , downplays the impact of remote work and the COVID-19 pandemic on the future distribution of population across space.

Andrea Székely, Tomaz Ponce Dentinho (p)

Miquel Correa

The movement of human being in space has been constantly present in history on Earth. Therefore, we are witnessing in the 21st century several types of migration (forced, on voluntary basis) within a continent and among the hemispheres. Previous research focused more on migration towards higher living standard and so towards urban spaces, our study is inclusive without assumptions to detect all patterns. The causes of migration could be numerous and complex even on individual level or in the case of a social group. The integration process into the mainstream society on a new territory is complex and long, and often leads to segregation. The combination of poverty, adverse neighbourhoods’ spill overs and isolation makes it for an individual difficult to perform well – in school, in the labour market, and in noncriminal activities generally.
Our work introduces a new way analysing the migration phenomenon based on parenthood. The concept of migration pointed out of examples of parents’ characterizations and moving activities in space, as well as their child moving activities measured in distance.
The aim of the paper is to understand what factors contribute to social and spatial integration assessed by a Human Interaction Model of Parenthood. Data is used to calibrate a Human Interaction Model of Parenthood that relates matching probabilities with proximity indicators between parents. Results reveals that although there are some common-sense proximities that explain parenthood such as ethnicity, religion, nationality there are also unexpected factors that affect parenthood.