Describing and projecting the age and spatial structures of interregional migration in Italy

A multiplicative component model is applied in this paper to present a simple, yet powerful, framework for analysing and projecting internal migration flows. The multiplicative components are useful for identifying important underlying structures in the migration patterns. To demonstrate, seven periods of age‐specific interregional migration in Italy (1970–1971 to 2000–2001) are analysed. This information is then used to project the age and spatial structures forward to the 2010–2011 period. The projection model focuses on the underlying structures, which allows both the stable and changing aspects of the migration patterns to be included.