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Immigration in Italy became sizable at the end of the 1980s, with initial inflows from the Mediterranean countries, together with the Philippines, Latin America and some Sub-Saharan countries (including Senegal and Ghana). In the 1990s, following the dissolution of the socialist block and URSS, inflows increased at a higher pace, and the compositio...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... 65% of men have the same type of job as before, 10% have been upgraded and only 23% downgraded. As Figure 4 shows, the occupational shift of female Romanian migrants means that the higher the previous position, the more dramatic the down-skilling that follows. sharing of some integration ideals, the Romanian community ranks 10 th . ...
Citations
... More studies in literature confirm the same conclusion: the immigrants' participation rate on the labor market is higher than in the case of natives Zimmermann 2008, 2016;Ambrosini 2013;Carvalho 2013;Hollifield et al. 2014;Del Boca and Venturini 2016). The high unemployment rate based on reasons such as economic transition or high education level for home country jobs explained the trend of migration from Eastern European countries to Italy. ...
... Del Boca and Venturini (2016) studied the consequences of changes in migration policies and the accession to the EU former countries of emigration. In the last few years, in the context of an aged society, the immigrants played a crucial role in the family sector, contributing to the integration of Italian skilled women in the national labor market. ...
... Immigration is still considered as an emergency for public and political attention in Italy with a focus on illegal immigration (Caneva 2014). The largest foreign community after 2007 is represented by the Romanian immigrants, Poles being in the 9th place and Bulgarian in the 28th position (Del Boca and Venturini 2016). ...
Considering the recent debates regarding Brexit and the potential negative effects of immigrants on Italian labor market, the main aim of this paper is to assess the impact of immigrants from Italy on the labor market of this country using econometric techniques. Based on these results, one answer regarding the potential exit of Italy from the EU (Italexit) because of the immigration issue is provided. According to a Johansen co-integration test, there was not any long-run relationship between the number of EU immigrants from Italy and the variation of unemployment rate in the period from 1990 to 2019. The estimations based on Bayesian ridge regressions indicated that the number of EU immigrants did not affect labor cost index in business economy, manufacturing or industry, construction and services in the period 2001–2019. The variation in employed immigrants from Italy in the period 2008–2019 depends on changes in risk of poverty or social exclusion, housing cost overburden rate, exports of goods and services, inflation and tax rate on low wage earners and adult participation in learning.
... The Italian society was characterized by ageing and the tendency of skilled women to be part of the labour market. In this context, immigrants are required to offer assistance to elderly and children for low salaries (Del Boca and Venturini, 2016). ...
Knowing that Romanians represent the largest community of immigrants from Italy, the main aim of this paper is to study the status of these immigrants on the Italian labour market. Using statistical tests, random-effects ordered logistic regressions and generalized ridge regression model based on the survey data, the results showed significant differences between the number of males and females for Romanian immigrants in the period 2006-2018. Females have more chances than males to be active and to be employed on the Italian labour market due to their stability in services sector. Young people are more active and have more chances to be employed compared to old ones. The number of Romanian unemployed immigrants from Italy depends on tax rate, on low wage earners, adult participation in learning and harmonized index of consumer price.
... Migrants tend to move to countries with good conditions in the labour market, offering therefore more chances of integration, such as Germany, the UK and Norway. However, in many cases, after arriving in the so called accession countries, they do not move on because they find hospitality or because the desired country of destination is not willing to welcome them (Del Boca and Venturini, 2016 Table I. Incidence of migrants on total population and some labour market indicators for migrants and native born on European countries in 2014 IJM Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia, the high percentages of people classified as foreign born is often the result of border changes or nation building in the late twentieth century, mainly related to the fall of the Iron Curtain. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand: whether the changes that have occurred in migrants’ conditions over time are smaller than the differences in their conditions existing across countries; and whether the comparison between immigrants and native-born conditions allows the verification of the levels of disparities between them and, therefore, the relative disadvantage suffered by migrant. After a general overview of the 28 European Union countries, this paper analyses the changes that have occurred from 2006 to 2017 in the conditions of migrants in the labour market in the big five European countries (Italy, Spain, France, Germany and the UK).
Design/methodology/approach
Various statistical methodologies were used. First, to gain an overall picture, taking into account both the spatial and the temporal dimensions, dynamic factor analysis (DFA) was applied. Second, time-dependent and cross-sectional time-series models were estimated to better understand the DFA results.
Findings
The results highlight very different scenarios in terms of labour market vulnerabilities, both affecting immigrants and native-born workers. The results also highlight the existence of a very complex framework, due to the high heterogeneity of immigrants’ characteristics and labour market capacities to integrate migrants and also to promote good conditions for the native-born population.
Originality/value
The picture emerging from this study and the evaluation of the policies and legislation in force to cope with migration and to promote integration suggests some reflections on the most efficacious actions to take in order to improve migrants’ integration, counteracting social exclusion and promoting economic growth.
... In the 1970s, Italy was chosen, above all, as a destination by migrant men coming from Northern Africa and Albania; women were a small part of the total stock of migrants and about 80% of them entered Italy to accompany or join family members as caregivers (Del Boca & Venturini, 2014). In more recent years, women represent the vast majority of migrants coming from Eastern European countries, South America and the Philippines, whereas men are overrepresented among migrants coming from, for example, Northern ...
Previous research has noted that divorce rates tend to be higher when there is a surplus of marriageable women in the marriage market. This paper argues that the size and the composition of the female migrant population can affect the marital stability of natives. We tested such hypothesis taking Italy as a case-study because it exemplifies a male-breadwinner society and because it is a relatively new immigration country. We estimated discrete-time event history models predicting marital disruption on data from the nationally representative 2009 Family and Social Subjects survey. Our results illustrated that the increasing presence of first mover migrant women (coming from Central-South America and Eastern Europe) was associated with higher separation risks among natives, especially for couples with lower human capital. By advancing the relevance of foreigners as a potential driver of natives’ family life courses, our findings add to our understanding of partnership dynamics in recent immigration countries.
... Alarming images of waves of " desperate " Africans fleeing poverty in search of a sort of mythical " 'El Dorado' crammed in long-worn ships barely staying afloat " (Pastore et al. 2006, cited in de Haas 2007, p. 1), have contributed to push the EU and its member states to put this issue high on their policy agenda. In Italy, the increasing flows of migrants were linked to the existence of a very long frontier, which made border patrol particularly difficult (Del Boca & Venturini, 2014, p. 5). In turn, an overexaggerated picture of immigrants, asylum seekers, foreigners, and refugees have been " constructed " as a security issue in order to better suit political and electoral strategies generally at the expense of international humanitarian principles (de Haas & Sigona, 2012; Van Dijck, 2006, p. 2). ...
Italy is increasingly a major destination for asylum seekers arriving by boat. In this context, the construction of a threat as " moral panic " , the idea of " national insecurity, " have been used by politicians to justify the implementation of " emergency " measures towards them. The aim of this study is to investigate the way so-called " boat people " are constructed as a pervasive threat to Italian national security. By doing so, it argues that the adoption of highly restrictive measures should be interpreted as the gov-ernment's own incapacity to address this issue and to conform to its obligations under international human rights law, rather than resulting from the urgency of the situation itself. This paper will also place the Italian case in the context of European Union (EU) policy framework on asylum seekers. Thus, it will explore in a critical manner the literature emanating from the EU and its grandstanding purpose and failure to impose a normative understanding and cohesive polity on the matter of the asylum seekers. Ultimately, the lack of a truly European approach has impacted on the failure of the Italian government to address this issue.
... In fact, the majority of irregular migration consists of people arriving 'by plane or land, or as tourists who subsequently work and overstay'. 93 The migration cooperation announced with Libya in May 2009 is a clear example of the government's willingness to set aside human rights to advance populist anti-migrant policies: the government began unilaterally interdicting boat migrants on the high seas and returning them summarily to Libya, with no screening to identify refugees, the sick or injured, pregnant women, unaccompanied children, victims of trafficking, or others in need to assistance, in breach of human rights and refugee law. 94 Until now, political debate on this issue and the practices adopted by the Italian government were generally about preserving national security and 'stopping the boats', extraterritorial processing and repatriation, rather than about human rights and global responsibilities. ...
For many years Italy has been described as a country of emigration. Only since the 1970s Italy has moved from being a net exporter of migrants to a net importer. Despite growing cultural and religious diversity, the implications of the pluralisation of the Italian society on national identity have been largely ignored. Italy has been recently described as a country without an established model of integration or pluralism. 1 The so called 'Italian way' towards cultural diversity remained predominantly theoretical in character and not supported officially, in the sense of being incorporated into the nation's history (as it is in Canada or Australia). The rise of 'ethnonationalism' and legacies of past colonialism contributed to create an institutional notion of supposed 'Italianness', which is based on the exclusion of the 'Other'. During the Liberal and Fascist periods, colonialism was used to create and reproduce a strong sense of nationhood, re-composing the many internal divisions by racialising 'otherness' outside rather than inside the nation's borders. This study suggests that, due to historical amnesia and a weak national identity, a similar logic is now informing the implementation of anti-immigration policies in Italy.
... However, informal and family networks still play an important role, as migrant carers often work as a complement to family-based support structures. Del Boca and Venturini (2014) show that migrant care labor in Italy has precisely fulfilled similar functions as public childcare in other countries, namely facilitating the entry of a large number of higher-educated women into the workforce. ...
This paper proposes a set of hypotheses to understand international migration as a substitute for different functions of modern welfare states: social insurance, macro-economic stabilization, and service provision. The paper proposes to analyze international labor mobility as a private alternative used by states and households to externalize or spread risk in times of fiscal austerity and welfare retrenchment. Hence, the paper outlines how international labor mobility is used by households a way to compensate for the weakness of social provision in sending countries (via remittances), as a way for both receiving and sending countries to externalize the costs of economic change, and as a way to ensure service delivery at a lower cost in contexts where welfare funding was cut or failed to keep pace with societal developments. The article calls for a broader understanding of welfare functions beyond strictly public provision and beyond methodological nationalism.
This study analyses the working conditions of highly educated mobile workers in five major European Union (EU) markets. The study uses the overeducation indicator, analyzing its transformation over the period 2005–2016. Using annual data from the European Union Labour Force Survey, the results reveal very different conditions between home country nationals and mobile workers from newer (enlargement)—EU-13—and older—EU-15—member states from the perspective of successful economic and social integration. The EU enlargement process has not completely removed the penalty for educated workers from EU-13 countries, but it has significantly reduced it, as has the premium received by mobile workers from other EU-15 member states, thus leading to their better integration and greater equality.
Gender and migrant status are important factors for health. A common finding is that women report poorer health than men and that migrants’ health converges with nonmigrants’ health as the duration of stay in the host country increases. However, little is known about whether gender differences in health persist within migrant groups and whether the migrant–native health convergence differs by gender, especially in the Italian context.
This study aims to include the gender dimension in the analysis of the health differences between Italians and migrants by duration of stay, focusing on how gender interacts with duration of stay in determining migrants’ health.
We performed multivariate logistic regression on a sample of 70,154 residents in Italy aged 20–64, using the 2013 Italian Health Survey. We modelled the association between duration of stay and three health dimensions by gender and computed predicted probabilities to show the interaction effect of gender and duration of stay.
We found evidence of a migrant health advantage among recent migrant men and women that becomes weaker among long-term migrants. After a long duration of stay, differences in health between migrants and nonmigrants are slightly more pronounced among women than among men.
This is the first study in Italy that contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the role played by gender in determining the health differences observed. The study highlights the need to consider migrant status and gender in tandem when looking at adult health inequalities.
Immigration has rapidly changed the demographic profile of most Western European societies, increasing their ethnic diversity. Some cross-disciplinary literature comparing homogeneous and diverse communities provides observational evidence of a link between high levels of ethnoracial diversity and lower levels of public goods provision. While these results are often interpreted as driven by context/interaction effects, whereby individuals lower their cooperativeness in response to the presence of non-coethnics, they could also be explained by composition effects – immigrants having different baseline levels of cooperativeness, and thereby lowering average cooperation rates. To disentangle these effects, we conducted a lab-in-the-field experiment with a sample of Italians and immigrants from Morocco and the Philippines residing in Milan. In our public goods experiment, participants were randomly assigned to either homogeneous or ethnically mixed groups. We find that Italians behave similarly in both homogeneous and heterogeneous groups, thus contradicting arguments about the negative effects of diversity on the native population, while there are both compositional and interactional effects when considering the behaviour of Moroccan and Filipino immigrants, respectively. Moreover, differences largely disappear when we consider only the behaviour of more socio-economically integrated immigrants, highlighting the need for a more processual understanding of cooperation in multiethnic communities.
