Internal Migration Trajectories, Occupational Achievement and Social Mobility in Contemporary Italy. A Life Course Perspective

This work analyses the interrelation among migration, student career, job experiences and family formation. It focuses on Italian South-to-North internal migration. Empirical analyses first describe the life patterns experienced by internal migrants, and then study the selection into different migration trajectories, as well as their association with different occupational achievements and social mobility pathways. The analyses are based on longitudinal data from IHLS and use Sequence Analysis and Logit Models. Results show that different migration trajectories are characterised by a marked selectivity of movers, and that they have different, even opposite, association with individual life chances. Some trajectories create social closure because they ‘reproduce’ the southern upper classes in the North. Other types are more widespread among the lower classes, but they do not guarantee better opportunities of social mobility. Finally, there are forms of mobility that represent valid routes of upward mobility for the middle and lower classes.