Page 7 - IJPS-10-3

International Journal of

Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Old but gold: The use of multiregional life tables

and the place-of-birth-dependent approach for
studying recent internal migration in Italy

1†
2†
1†
Alessio Buonomo *, Federico Benassi , Oliviero Casacchia , and
Salvatore Strozza 1†
1 Department of Political Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy
2 Department of Statistical Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

Abstract

There has been a significant shift in migratory behavior within Italy over time.
The origins and destinations of the migration flows, which were previously
characterized by a clear prevalence of moving from the south to the center-north,
are now much more heterogeneous and complex. Despite the important progress
achieved in the past 20 years, the measurement of internal migration remains a
contentious topic in international research. Using data provided by the Italian
National Institute of Statistics, we applied Rogers’ multiregional model place-of-
† These authors contributed equally birth-dependent approach to assess the internal migration flows that occurred in
to this work. Italy in the period 2002 – 2013. This approach provides accurate measurements of
*Corresponding author: internal migration, noting in particular the years of life expectancy for each birth
Alessio Buonomo cohort living in each geographical Italian macroregion (northeast, northwest,
(alessio.buonomo@unina.it)
center, and south). The results indicate that the northwest is the main area of
Citation: Buonomo, A., Benassi, F., destination for internal migration. The birth cohort in the south is the one that
Casacchia, O., & Strozza, S.
(2024). Old but gold: The use of has the greatest number of years of life expectancy in other macroregions.
multiregional life tables and the Interestingly, this cohort is the only one characterized by a predominantly male
place-of-birth-dependent approach migratory model.
for studying recent internal
migration in Italy. International
Journal of Population Studies,
10(3): 1-16. Keywords: Macroregion; Multiregional model; Multiregional life table; Gender; Life
https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.1898 expectancy; Italy; Migration
Received: September 23, 2023
Accepted: December 12, 2023
Published Online: April 22, 2024 1. Introduction
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s). Internal migration is recognized as a complex phenomenon involving demographic,
This is an Open-Access article spatial, and economic aspects (Bell et al., 2015; Courgeau, 2021). Although demographic
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution indicators used for comparison and measurement have been unanimously recognized
License, permitting distribution, for the study of mortality and fertility, a set of measures utilized for gauging migration
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is remains to be determined (Raymer & Willekens, 2008; United Nations, 2014). Over the
properly cited. past 15 years, important progress has been made in the statistical estimation of indicators
Publisher’s Note: AccScience for measuring international migration (Rees et al., 2017). However, the measurement
Publishing remains neutral with of internal migration, despite the significant strides made, remains a contentious topic
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional in international research. This paper aims to make a scientific contribution to the
affiliations. challenge of studying internal migration through less explored methods. This challenge

Volume 10 Issue 3 (2024) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.1898