The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Foreigners in the Italian Labour Market

Abstract

This paper sets out to evaluate the effects of the economic crisis on foreign workers in Italy. Unlike other countries, in Italy the number of foreign workers has increased during the crisis. Taking the relative measures into account, it is evident that the crisis has affected male foreigners more than Italian workers. The longitudinal data of the Labour Force Survey allow the labour market transitions before and during the employment crisis to be taken into consideration. These data show that the crisis has mainly hit male workers, and in particular foreigners. The application of multinomial logistic regression models to employment transitions shows that, maintaining structural variables under control, the penalisation of foreigners has not changed during the crisis. This is certainly due to the specific impact of the crisis on the Italian economy, but also the structural role that foreigners play in the labour market.

Immigration Italian Style, 1977–2018

“…The decline in the number of employed workers was particularly notable in sectors relying on immigrant labor (Bonifazi and Marini ). For example, the number of workers in construction in the five‐year period 2008 to 2013 fell by 399,000; from 1,952,000 to 1,553,000, and this trend continued in the years that followed, although at a less intense pace.…”

“…Less than half a century later, the foreign population share in Italy exceeds that in France (and has done so since 2011), while in 2007, it had grown to 10 percent in Spain-the highest share in Europe after Luxembourg and Switzerland. 2 There has clearly been a process of convergence-followed, in some cases, even by overtake-between Southern and Northern/Western Europe as far as the presence of foreigners is concerned (Zlotnik 1998;King et al 2000;Bonifazi 2013Bonifazi , 2017Bonifazi and Strozza 2017;Strozza and De Santis 2017).…”

“…These trends are mostly due to variations in international immigration, while the net number of migrants with the South of Italy remained positive-around one to two per thousand and with limited fluctuations over the 40-year period. During the migration boom decade, both demographic and economic pull factors were strongly favorable to migration (Bonifazi and Marini 2010). The turnover ratio had already fallen below 100 in 1995, and then stabilized around 75 potential new workers for every 100 potential new retirees beginning in 2005.…”

“…The second factor is purely demographic in nature and consists of constant growth of the elderly population due to increasing life expectancy (Bonifazi and Marini 2010). According to the 1951 Italian Census, there were 3,895,000 people aged 65 and over, which rose to 7,485,000 in 1981 and 12,345,000 in 2011.…”

Migrant women’s employment in paid reproductive work through the crisis: the case of Italy (2007-2012)

“…Despite the fear that, due to the crisis, Italian women might have started to compete with migrants for these jobs, data has shown the relative stability of migrant women's employment in this sector; they have certainly had fewer problems keeping their jobs than their male counterparts (Bonifazi and Marini, 2013;Pastore et al, 2013;Reyneri, 2010). The general conclusion was that these foreign women have kept their positions thanks to being placed in a relatively "safe" sector, paid domestic and care work (Picchi, 2012;ISTAT, 2013;Farris, 2015;Semenza, 2012).…”