Working Paper: NBER ID: w19422
Authors: Vincenzo Atella; Partha Deb
Abstract: This article examines the long term physical and mental health effects of internal migration focusing on a relatively unique migration experience from Southern and Northeastern regions of Italy to Northwestern regions and to the region around Rome concentrated over a relatively short period from 1950-1970. OLS regression estimates show significant evidence of a migration effect among early-cohort females on physical health. We find no evidence of migration-health effects for the later cohort, nor for males in the early cohort. We use finite mixture models to further explore the possibility of heterogeneous effects and find that there is a significant and substantial improvement in physical and mental health for a fraction of migrant females in the early cohort but not for others. Analysis of the group for which effects are significant suggest that health effects are concentrated among rural females in the early cohort.
Keywords: migration; health outcomes; Italy; females; rural-urban status
JEL Codes: C21; I15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| better living conditions at the destination (J61) | health improvements for migrant women (J82) |
| rural-urban origin status (R20) | health outcomes (I14) |
| migration effect on physical health of early-cohort females (J11) | better health outcomes compared to non-migrants (I14) |
| migrant women from southern and northeastern Italy to northwestern regions (J61) | substantial improvements in physical and mental health (I19) |
| years spent in the south before migration (N91) | decrease in physical component summary (PCS) (I14) |
| years spent in the south before migration (N91) | decrease in mental component summary (MCS) (I14) |