Interregional Migration of Human Capital and Unemployment Dynamics: Evidence from Italian Provinces

Since the mid-1990s interregional migration flows in Italy have dramatically increased, especially from the South to the North. These flows are characterized by a strong component of human capital, involving a large number of workers with secondary and tertiary education. Using longitudinal data for the period 2002–2011 at NUTS-3 territorial level, we document that long-distance (i.e., South-North) net migration of high-skill workers has increased the unemployment at origin and decreased it at destination, thus deepening North–South unemployment disparities. On the other hand, long-distance net migration of low-skill workers has had the opposite effect, by lowering the unemployment at origin and raising it at destination. Further evidence also suggests that the diverging effect of high-skill migration dominates the converging effect of low-skill migration. Thus, concerns for an ‘internal brain drain’ from Southern regions look not groundless.