A difficult social mobility : the education of children of southern parents emigrated to central and north Italy

Internal migrations among regions have been one of the most important events in the recent Italian history with consequences that are still noticeable. Nevertheless, rarely the attention has been devoted to the destiny and integration of immigrant families from the South. Through multi-generational survey data, we evaluated the educational attainments reached by children of immigrants from the South to the North of Italy in comparison with children of non-movers parents (both in the area of arrival and departure), controlling for many family features strictly related to children education as parents’ socio-economic position, parents’ education and family size. Ceteris paribus, children of immigrants born in the North (second generations stricto sensu) have had not significantly different probability to reach the upper secondary level from them with non movers parents whereas, who lived migration with their parents (generation 1.5), has been clearly disadvantaged. Therefore, for G2 the chances in terms of education are not related to family migration history but only to social and demographic conditions owned by parents. On the other hand, G1.5 show problems linked to the interruption of educational career. These results are evident for the North-West of Italy but are not so clear in the Middle North-East.