Graduates’ interregional migration in times of crisis: the Italian case

The economic crisis has affected migration of young adults while experiencing increasing entering and remaining in the labour market. In Italy the share of graduates working in a different territory than those of graduation increased during this period. Previous studies mostly focused on regular business-cycles highlighting the relationship between employment and leaving the place of origin, but studies considering the impact of the Great Recession on interregional migration of graduates is still missing. To fill this gap, the main purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of economic conditions on graduates’ interregional migration, and whether and how these effects change over time in Italy. Our dataset merged two micro-waves of survey data with macrolevel variables, from which we estimated multilevel models for binary responses. Our results shown that the positive effect of regional Youth Unemployment Rates on graduates’ likelihood of interregional migration was stronger for those obtaining their degree in 2011 compared to those who graduated in 2007.