Privilege travels: migration and labour market outcomes of Southern Italian graduates

Abstract

AbstractThis paper contributes to the literature on social stratification by analysing the role of internal migration as a possible channel for the intergenerational transmission of inequality. While internal migration is associated with social mobility, it can also be used as a strategy of status maintenance among graduates from privileged backgrounds. The aim of this paper is to scrutinize whether internal migration for study or work, and subsequent labour market outcomes, are associated with social origins. Using a rich administrative and survey data set on a cohort of Italian graduates, findings show a substantive effect of social origins on graduates’ migration for study but not on migration for work. Finally, the results also more tentatively indicate that migration for study is one relevant path connecting social origins and income, thus emphasizing how privilege is not bound to place, but travels.