Internal migration-an important signal of the segmentation of the labour market in Italy

It is well known that migration is a very complex phenomenon open to different, difficult interpretations both on the cultural and the socio-economic level. Furthermore, unlike other demographic variables, its effects appear very quickly, as they react strongly to the pressure exerted, for instance, by the economic system. In fact, the migratory variable – since it can quickly move massive groups of people – produces even deep changes in the structures of territories and their populations. On the other hand, the knowledge itself of the migratory phenomenon appears to be always in progress in Italy – above all in an historical age like the current one when all the old schemes of reference seem obsolete. First of all, we can affirm that the demographic balance in Italy has recently registered positive signals thanks to the migratory component only, whose net contribution has widely offset a natural negative balance (the number of births minus the number of deaths). Therefore, migrants have assured some recent demographic vitality to our country, even if the latest data (2009) show a slowdown of about 100,000 units (from 550,000 to 450,000 approximately) in such a contribution. In the light of such schematic situation and focusing on internal mobility only, we argue that a behavioural model – in terms of territorial strands and migrants’ “profile” – is emerging and that it is very different from the past ones. In fact, beyond the rushing South-to-North migratory waves, it is clear, just at the beginning of the 21st century, the emerging of a set of very different trends suggested by reasons and strands that have in common a greater territorial balance. These trends are undoubtedly led by labour markets, which nowadays represent non homogeneous realities – thus enabling, as a consequence, the segmentation processes to create separate, little or not communicating at all areas.If we reflect upon labour market and its qualitative and quantitative imbalances, we can verify that labour market and its territorial differentiation give migration a well-established role: since they play a stimulating role, they prove to be factors of redistribution of human resources when significant changes are taking place as regards employment in the different areas of the country. In other words, migratory dynamics, seen as a signal of territorial imbalance within the labour market, aims at carrying out an action of consolidation and reorganisation in comparison with those inelasticity factors which have often characterised the employment distribution across the territory.This paper aims at examining migratory dynamics over the last years – with a particular attention to the interregional one, maybe more characterized by economic grounds – as well as the possible existing links with the employment system. The work includes, among other things, a methodological approach so that it resumes what already developed in a paper1 some years ago; moreover, it is based neither on a direct, quantitative analysis of migratory flows among the various regions nor on their respective balance, but it comes out, as it will be better shown in the next paragraph, from the definition of a “standard profile” of who move across the territory; such a profile is able to describe the main reasons (the basic research refers to the registrations of birth and deaths over the years 2006-2008) of the above mentioned movements. After the individuation of the “dominant” profile within each region and the two groups of Italians and foreigners, the aim of this paper is to distinguish labour market on a territorial level, its possible trends and peculiarities through the statistical procedure described below.[...