Demographic change and regional development strategies: some suggestions from human capital demographic projections. Lessons learned in Emilia-Romagna and Friuli Venezia Giulia Italian Regions

Serena Francovig, Informest
Angelina Mazzocchetti, Regione Emilia-Romagna
Irene Plet, Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia

In the last decades demographic change has been considered more and more important on the debate about territorial possible path of growth. Of the wide range of phenomenon determining considerable change in the demographic picture of a territorial area, ageing and population movements are commonly recognized as factors importantly impacting territorial growth. In the EU framework is recognized “the need of a broader view of the link between migration and development” and to “integrating migration into development policy”. This study is part of the activity foreseen by the MMWD project : Making Migration Work for Development – Policy tools for strategic planning in SEE regions and cities which is a strategic project funded by the SEE program and of which Emilia-Romagna and Friuli Venezia Giulia are partners. It aims at describing the effect of migration movements, mainly immigration given the specific situation of the two involved areas, in the future evolution of the population human capital and the way this can contribute to the identification of critical development issues. The analysis of the estimated educational transition probabilities shows important peculiarities related to citizenship; in particular, young population of foreign citizenship, in both male and female subgroup, are characterized by lower transition probability respect to nationals belonging to the same age-group and educational level. The outputs of the study, which is ongoing, will be the basement for integrated scenario construction covering the three policy streams, so as planned in MMWD project. Moreover, they will allow a complete analysis in other research areas, in particular focusing on labour economy. Finally, it is important to underline that this research aims at developing and improving a method also by better identify its hypothesis, in order to be used systematically in defining regional social policy.