Internal Migration in Italy and its Links with International Migration

The growing policy concern with cross-borders migrants tends to overlook the contribution of within-borders migration. Nevertheless, the increasing complexity of human mobility requires that internal migration, a phenomenon that, at least in quantitative terms, appears to be even more relevant than international migration, is taken into account. The overwhelming majority of people who move do so inside their own country.In Italy, as well as in other countries, internal migration is a key determinant of changes in population distribution and the most rapid and effective way to offset imbalances in the local labour markets. Shifting to a micro perspective, territorial mobility, especially when it occurs at a medium or long distance, is an efficientstrategy for upward social mobility, and a way to increase the return on human capital.The aim of this chapter is two-fold. On the one it gives a brief description of internal migrations in Italy today and in the last decades highlighting the main trajectories. On the other hand, it attempts to further develop an integrated analysis of internal and international migration involving Italy by making use of administrative data