Regional Migration Patterns and Educational Outcomes in Italy

Using surname distributions as proxies for historical migration, the authors study how ancestral geography relates to contemporary educational outcomes across Italian provinces and 2,244 municipalities. A directional TF-IDF framework quantifies the prevalence of Southern-origin surnames. Regions with higher Southern surname shares perform systematically worse on standardized assessments, net of economic controls. At the provincial level, Southern surname prevalence strongly predicts scores ( β = −0.815 to −1.028, p < 0.001); municipal effects are attenuated yet significant ( β = −0.220 to −0.485, p < 0.01). Latitude strongly predicts performance at both levels. The authors introduce surname-weighted provincial scores for Mathematical Olympiad outcomes, attributing performance to paternal ancestral provinces. In this setting, latitude significantly predicts surname-weighted scores ( β = 0.460, p < 0.001), with a role for GDP ( β = 0.311, p < 0.015). Results suggest persistent regional differences shaped by migration, cultural transmission, ancestry, and socioeconomic stratification

Human geography · Latitude · Location · Net migration rate · Olympiad · Socioeconomic status · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Italy: Economic History and Contemporary Issues · Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research