Verifying the intrinsic stability of demographic processes over time and space is a pivotal task from both science and policy perspectives. Compared with other regions of the old continent, a latent peculiarity of demographic systems in Southern Europe is their persistent heterogeneity over space, especially observed across metropolitan regions. ‘Centers’ and ‘peripheries’ are thus becoming representative of, respectively, territories undergoing demographic growth and decline. The former corresponds to urban areas, being attractive for different population segments. The present study illustrates the results of a statistical analysis of total population data over time (2011–2020) and its decomposition in natural increase and net migration rates in 14 metropolitan cities of Italy. Assuming that central and peripheral (e.g., suburbs) locations show differential trends of natural increase and net migration, our analysis verifies whether (i) central locations behave homogeneously in terms of population dynamics, and whether (ii) a North–South gradient holds. Results indicate how (metropolitan) demographic patterns no longer reflect a traditional gap between Northern and Southern regions, while outlining a subtler divide in growing and declining contexts. The few still-growing metropolitan areas were all located in North-Central Italy, and reflect more polarized socioeconomic contexts than in the past. Internal migration was likely the most powerful factor that discriminates growing from declining cities. Such evidence indicates that strengthening the self-restraining capacity of Southern Italian territories contributes to increase their attractiveness of international migration flows, counteracting demographic shrinkage.

Scholars have argued that, on average, immigrant students are ‘optimists’ and have higher educational aspirations than non‐migrant students after accounting for students' socio‐economic background and educational performance. However, ethnic minority groups, which proxy the different origin backgrounds of migrants, may show mixed findings in terms of educational aspirations. This study aims to analyse the lyceum (the most theoretical school in Italy) and university aspirations of migrant‐origin students and their Italian counterparts, enrolled respectively in Italian lower (Grade 8: age 13) and upper secondary state schools (Grades 9–11: ages 14–16). The analyses are based on data from the Italian Integration of the Second Generation survey conducted during the 2014/15 school year. Our results show that students having Chinese, Moroccan, Moldovan and other non‐European Union Eastern European origins assume the lowest levels of lyceum aspiration after also considering compositional effects. Conversely, the largest proportion of migrants attending school in Grades 9–11 have higher levels of university aspiration compared to non‐migrants. When considering the role of migratory generation, lyceum and university aspirations are positively associated with the acculturation process of migrants. Furthermore, we found that high family expectations, social relationships and self‐perception benefits of studying have positive associations with both lyceum and university aspirations, especially among migrants.

Despite the relevance of the gender dimension of immigration, political engagement of migrant women has rarely been the focus of scholarly research. This article tries to fill this gap. Using secondary data from the “Condizione e integrazione sociale dei cittadini stranieri” [Social Condition and Integration of Foreign Citizens] survey carried out by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) in 2011–2012, we analysed the factors that at an individual level spur or inhibit migrants’ political engagement in Italy in terms of gender differences. We decided to use political interest and political participation separately as dependent dichotomous variables in logistic models that consider structural, situational, migratory, and group-related variables as independent factors. From our analysis, some relevant differences emerged both in terms of gender and in terms of political attitudes and behaviours. Our results confirm the existence of a gender gap in political engagement among migrants in Italy: migrant women are always less likely to be engaged in politics compared to men, both in terms of interest and participation. After controlling for some characteristics, this gap never disappears completely. Our results also suggest that there are some notable differences in the determinants of political engagement. Indeed, family workload inhibits the probability of political engagement only for migrant women. Furthermore, our results cast light on the crucial role of social capital in spurring political engagement for both women and men, thus contributing to reducing the gender gap.

Educational aspirations play a central role in determining students’ possible educational trajectories. A few scholarly researches have explored the comparison between aspirations and achievements due to the longitudinal nature of the information required. This contribution aims to fill this gap by using record linkage techniques and proposes to measure the role of students’ educational aspirations during their upper school attendance in achieving their (subsequent) actual university attendance in Italy. First, the information from the 2015 ISTAT survey on “Integration of Second Generations (ISG)” were used to describe upper school students’ educational aspirations by citizenship. Second, the record linkage of ISG dataset with the administrative data on university students, from the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR), makes possible to analyse the role of individual aspirations on actual achievement in terms of university attendance. Results showed that the aspiration to pursue tertiary education positively impact on the final decision to attend tertiary education. However, the percentage of foreign students, who have post-upper school aspiration toward tertiary education and subsequently actually university attendance, is significantly lower than the same percentage for Italians. The results associated to the age at arrival do not indicate a definite trend when considering the aspiration to go to university. Conversely, when considering the likelihood of students’ university attendance, the older the student is on arrival, the lower the probability of enrolling in university.

Foreign presence is an intrinsically spatial phenomenon, characterized by strong geographical variability across different territorial contexts. This variability becomes progressively more intense as we move down the territorial scale of analysis. This contribution proposes an empirical evaluation of the residential geographies of EU foreign citizens and non-EU foreign citizens residing in the Metropolitan City of Naples (Campania, Southern Italy), a context characterized by a low level of immigration. The empirical analysis uses data from the 2021 permanent demographic census and is carried out using census tracts as the primary statistical units and an ad hoc geographical framework (‘quartieri’ for the municipality of Naples and municipalities for the rest of the Metropolitan City of Naples). The residential geographies of foreign groups are summarized using the dissimilarity index of Duncan and Duncan in the adjusted version proposed by Mazza and Punzo. This index informs us about the level of evenness between the spatial distribution of foreigners compared to that of Italians (who act as the reference group). The adjusted version of the index allows us to control for some biases that normally arise in cases with a low number of foreigners. The geographical distribution of the bias-corrected index for the two foreign population groups is represented by thematic maps. Then, its level of spatial autocorrelation (global and local) is analyzed. The results allow us to appreciate the spatial variability of the foreign population residing in the Metropolitan City of Naples and to provide initial insights into their spatial patterns using a multiscale geographical approach, which serves as a first step toward a better understanding of their residential behaviours.