Immigrants and legal status: Do personal contacts matter?

Abstract

Using unique Italian survey data on both documented and undocumented immigrants, we empirically quantify the correlation between different types of personal contacts and immigrants' documentation probability, while also uncovering the contacts' indirect associations via immigrant labour market outcomes (employment status and job characteristics). Our results indicate that contacts with both natives and family members have a positive and quantitatively large effect on immigrant documentation probability, conditional on a large set of covariates. Contacts with members of the same ethnic group, by contrast, increase documentation probability only moderately, an effect explainable by these co-ethnics' association with employment probability. Moreover, our findings support the hypothesis that native contacts can connect immigrants with jobs that favour documentation.

Who Wants to Become Italian? A Study of Interest in Naturalisation among Foreign Migrants in Italy

“…Permanently settled migrants (i.e. those with a regular presence, higher duration of stay in Italy, higher naturalisation rate, and family presence) are more prevalent in northern Italy compared with the rest of the country (Blangiardo, 2019 ; Cremaschi & Devillanova, 2020 ; Istat, 2020 ). Accordingly, Lombardy’s naturalisation rates are consistently higher than the overall national rate.…”

Exploring the role of legal status and neighborhood social capital on immigrant economic integration in Los Angeles

“…To learn more about the employment and legal contexts of their new country, newcomers can also utilize the more intimate, immediately accessible relationships of family and friendship ties in their neighborhoods. These close relationships are particularly central to integration, as friends and family are critical factors in the decisions to migrate, find work, and attain legal status (Cremaschi and Devillanova 2021;Flores-Yeffal 2015). Lastly, proximity to family, friends, and other immigrants from one's country of origin is likely to matter only if there is a system of informal reciprocated exchange among community members in the form of sharing resources and the transmission of trusted, reliable information (e.g., "I help you with child care if you help me learn English").…”