Abstract
This article examines the long term physical and mental health effects of internal migration focusing on a relatively unique migration experience concentrated over a short period between 1950 and 1970 from the South to the North of Italy. We find a positive and statistically significant association between migration, its timing and physical health for migrant females, which we show are likely to represent rural females in both the early and the late cohort. We find less defined evidence of migration-health association for mental health. We link our findings to the economic transition and labor market transformation that Italy witnessed in that era. Male migrants were likely to be positively selected to migration, but harsh working conditions were likely to downplay this differential. On the contrary, women migrants, by and large, would not engage in the formal labor market avoiding the ill effects of working environments, at the same time benefiting from better living conditions and health care in the destination regions.
Highlights
The analysis of migration flows, its determinants and its effects on a wide range of socio-economic phenomena have been examined in the literature beginning with the seminal contribution of Chiswick (1978) and Carliner (1980) who use cross-section of earning functions to investigate earning profiles for native born and immigrants in the United States
The results show that South to Northwest migrant women are significantly healthier than non-migrant women and that the health of migrant women is better the earlier they migrated to the North, i.e., the shorter their exposure to the South
We find little evidence of health effects of migration in our analysis using OLS regression
Summary
The analysis of migration flows, its determinants and its effects on a wide range of socio-economic phenomena have been examined in the literature beginning with the seminal contribution of Chiswick (1978) and Carliner (1980) who use cross-section of earning functions to investigate earning profiles for native born and immigrants in the United States. The benefits of increasing productivity and higher economic growth due to migration flows could be counter-balanced by long-term health care and social assistance costs if migration results in deteriorating health status. The relevance of these problems has been magnified in recent years as migration flows have dramatically increased.. Migration took place in two concentrated waves, the first abroad and the second internal from the South and Northeast of Italy to the Northwest and the region near Rome These migration flows were a direct consequence of especially harsh living conditions in the South and were accompanied by two secular societal changes.
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