Tracking Urbanisation Gradient of NEET: Trends and Changing Rural-Urban Gaps

. Rural–urban disparities remain a key feature of Southern European economies. This paper analyzes the dynamics of the rural–urban gap in Italy, Spain, and Portugal over the period 2004–2023, focusing on the presence of convergence mechanisms. We model the change in the log gap as a function of its lagged level and a set of structural controls related to sectoral composition, labour market conditions, and human capital. A negative and statistically significant coefficient on the lagged gap is interpreted as evidence of mean-reverting dynamics (stochastic convergence). The results show evidence of mean-reverting dynamics in all three countries. The lagged gap is negative and statistically significant, indicating the presence of stochastic convergence between rural and urban areas. However, the magnitude of the adjustment differs across countries, pointing to heterogeneous speeds of convergence