The study of internal migration by citizenship: new advancements referred to Italy

The study of migration of different population inside a country has now rapidly developed. Thanks to the availability of detailed individual information on origin/destination migration flows in some countries, particularly those country with population register, it is possible to deeply analyze the behaviour of population mobility internal to a country. Some previous studies carried out in Italy - as in other countries of immigration - have produced interesting results concerning the differential characteristics of internal mobility by citizenship, of course with reference to the "de jure" - or resident - population. Through the application of gravity models, i.e. the models inspired to the Newtonian law, it is possible to detect the main characteristics of foreigners internal mobility compared to the national mobility: a higher mobility, a robust effect of the distance in reducing mobility among different areas, a differential and opposite effect of the masses - i.e., the population of origin and the population of destination - that seems to preclude a clear segregation effect. A foreigner seems to move preferably towards areas with high percentage of foreign population, avoiding areas with high domestic population. The effect are clearly reversed analyzing the mobility of the domestic population. In our study a composite-differential-simultaneous gravity model is proposed with reference to the analyze of five population internal mobility in Italy (Italians, Romanian, Albanian, Moroccan and Chinese population). The analysis is conducted to a provincial level (103 territorial unit). The results of different models are discussed. -