Discrimination, Political Orientation and the Probability to Emigrate and Escape: University Professors in Fascist Italy
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With Sascha O. Becker we study the decision to emigrate of academics of Jewish origin dismissed from their positions by the Mussolini government in 1938, when new Racial Laws were introduced, opening a new phase of increased persecution of Jews by restricting their rights and livelihoods. We use rich individual-level data, from the 1938 census on public employees, on the universe of Jewish full professors, revealing their family structure, domestic and international academic recognition, and political orientation. Jewish academics with children, with Jewish spouses, those whose parents are deceased, as well as young, internationally recognised scholars, and the ones that converted to Catholicism are more likely to emigrate. Jewish academics who are either openly fascist or anti-fascist are less likely to emigrate. We interpret the latter result along the lines of Albert O. Hischmann’s Exit, Voice and Loyalty paradigm together with the influence of relational capital on the probability to emigrate: the exertion of Voice though the public expression of political opinions (e.g. signing politically oriented Manifestos in the 1920s), indicates a higher sense attachment to local high education institutions and to the social role of university professors. This form of loyalty (to local institutions or to past self) imply a higher cost of Exit and reduces the probability of emigration. At the same time, political activism imply the formation of relational capital which is inherently local, in comparison with the social connections established by apolitical scholars that invest only in pure academic relational capital, which is more footloose. The characteristics of the social networks of the University professors under scrutiny is, therefore, negatively influencing the probability to emigrate of the politically active ones.
