ROMA (ITALPRESS) – The Mezzogiorno continues to lose young qualified skills, with an increasingly anticipated mobility already at the time of enrollment at the University, which structurally reduces the chances of return. Next to this dynamic, a rapidly growing phenomenon is affirmed: the “submerged” mobility of the elderly, the “grandparents with the suitcase”, which preserve the residence in the South but reach children and grandchildren emigrated to the Centre-North. These are the main data of the Svimez Report ‘A Country, two migrations’, presented in collaboration with Save the Children, during a conference today in Rome. From 2002 to 2024 almost 350 thousand under 35 graduates left the Mezzogiorno in the direction of Centro-Nord, for a dry loss (net of return) of 270 thousand units. Over the period, the share of graduates among southern migrants between 25 and 34 years has tripled: from 20% of 2002 to about 60% in 2024. The internal migration flows are accompanied by the increasing choice of the South-Eastway route: between 2002 and 2024 over 63 thousand under 35 southern graduates have left the country. Net of return, the overall loss for the South is 45 thousand qualified young people.
In only 2024, the qualified young people of the Mezzogiorno who moved to the Centre-North are 23 thousand, those who have “chosen” abroad are more than 8 thousand. In a year the net loss of young South graduates, adding internal and foreign migrations, amounts to 24 thousand units. The phenomenon of intellectual migration is strongly feminine: from 2002 to 2024 195 thousand women graduated from the South to the Centre-North, 42 thousand in more than men. The share of qualified migrants from South to Central North has grown above all among women: from 22% in 2002 to almost 70% in 2024, against an increase from 14.6% to 50.7% among men. The North also recorded an increasing international emigration: between 2002 and 2024, 154 thousand graduates left a Central-North region. The phenomenon peaked in 2024: 21 thousand young graduates under 35 central and northern have moved abroad, double value than in 2019 (about 10 thousand). The North Centre largely compensates for its foreign losses thanks to the flows from the Mezzogiorno: +270 thousand net positive balance against the Mezzogiorno between 2002 and 2024.
The emigration of graduates from the territories in which they were formed results in a dispersion of public investment supported for their education for the benefit of the regions and countries of destination. The SVIMEZ quantifies in 6.8 billion euros a year the cost associated with the internal mobility of young graduates from the Mezzogiorno to the Centre-North: a net and structural transfer of public resources in favor of the strongest areas of the country. The cost of foreign migration is added to this: for the Mezzogiorno, the loss of training investment is estimated at 1.1 billion euros per year, while the Centre-North registers a loss of more than 3 billion euros per year for the emigration abroad of the most qualified profiles.
Mobility no longer awaits the end of studies: it is already anticipated at the start of university studies. In the academic year 2024/2025, almost 70 thousand southern students – about 521 thousand – study in a North Centre university: over 13% of the total, with peaks of 21% in STEM disciplines. Campania and Sicily generate almost half of the output flow. Lombardy confirms the most attractive region, followed by Emilia Romagna and Lazio. The “anticipated” emigration is motivated by the choice of approaching labour markets with greater employment opportunities. Among the graduates who have earned the title in an university of the Centre-North, 88.5% is occupied in the same macro-area three years after graduation. The situation appears significantly different for those who graduated in a Southern University: less than 70% of graduates find employment in the territories of origin. The SVIMEZ highlights an important signal in counter-tendence. In recent years, the attractiveness of Southern Athens has improved: at equal registration in southern universities (108 thousand), for three-year and one-cycle degree courses, the southern enrolled in Athens in the Centre-North have reduced from 24 thousand students in the a.a. 2021/2022 to 17 thousand in the a.a. 2024/2025.
For children living in marginal and peripheral areas, as evidenced by the data of Save the Children, already in teenage age over a third of the young people living in the regions of the South and the Islands, it is particularly important to move in the future to another municipality or city: 37.5% against 26.9% of those who live in Central or North Italy. Children and girls living in southern regions are also the most likely to positively assess the idea of going abroad (38.2% compared to 35.6% of those living in the Centre or in the North). Among teenagers children of immigrant families, 58.7% declare that they want to move to another country in the future, possible evidence of the difficulties encountered in the path of growth also because of an uncertain legal status. The aspiration to move abroad is shared by a large number of 15-16 years of Italian origin, one out of three (34.9%).
Three years after the title was achieved, Italian graduates working abroad earn between 613 and 650 euros plus a month compared to those staying in Italy. Within the country, the Mezzogiorno recorded the lowest average wage (€1.579), compared to €735 in the Northwest. The wage differential between a Mezzogiorno graduate and a North-West graduate amounted to approximately 375 euro per month for the latter (1.862 versus 1,487 euro). The SVIMEZ has estimated the number of over 75 southerners who, while maintaining their residence in a South region, live permanently in Central North. The estimates are based on the analysis of the compensations of the agreed pharmaceutical mobility and on the pro-capite expenditure for drugs of the elderly. According to estimates SVIMEZ, between 2002 and 2024 the elderly formally resident in the South who live permanently at the Centre-Nord (“grandfathers with the suitcase”) have almost doubled, from 96 thousand to over 184 thousand units. This submerged emigration reflects two woven dynamics. On the one hand, family reunion with children and grandchildren emigrated to the Centre-North also to support family care loads; on the other, the increasing difficulty of receiving adequate care services in the Mezzogiorno, characterized by shortcomings in health and welfare services.
The meeting was opened by the research director Polo of Save the Children, Raffaela Milano, by the journalist of Repubblica Antonio Fraschilla who presented the video ‘A Country, two migrations. Freedom to move, right to stay and the researcher of Svimez Serenella Caravella who illustrated the highlights of the report. The presentation was attended by the president of the Consulta Anci Giovani, Domenico Carbone, the president of the Young Entrepreneurs Confindustria Salerno Vincenzo Iennaco, the national secretary of the Young Democrats, Virginia Libero, the journalist of Will Media, Carlo Notarpietro. In the course of the presentation the director of Svimez, Luca Bianchi has emphasized how “New public policies for the right to remain, oriented to valorize the skills formed in the Mezzogiorno, borrowing the incentive tools to return brains. The migration of young graduates from the Mezzogiorno is increasingly an obligatory response to the lack of economic, employment and social opportunities in the territories of origin. In this perspective, the SVIMEZ proposes the introduction, at European level, of a Graduate Staying Premium, based on a partial detaxation of the income from work of young graduates in the first five years of activity in the European regions placed in the trap of talents. The Graduate Staying Premium could be one of the innovative tools of employability policies in European programming 2028-2034, intervening on one of the main factors that feed the mobility of qualified young people. The measure would increase the net wage of entry, reducing the gap compared to the strongest areas and making the right to remain more practical.”.
For the responsible analysis and research of Save the Children, Antonella Winter “It is precisely the girls and boys who grew up in the marginal and peripheral areas of the country who struggle to imagine a future in Italy and their aspirations transformed into concrete life projects. Instead, it is in these places that should focus on public policies, properly funded, so that the younger ones can think of staying in the territories of origin, thus becoming the advocates of the development of those same territories.’.
– photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
