Are migrants an asset in recession? Insights from Italy

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we analyse the characteristics of employed migrants before and after the beginning of the recession in Italy to understand whether the economic crisis has exacerbated or reduced the high segmentation of the Italian labour market, with foreign workers largely concentrated in low-paid and low-quality jobs, even when highly educated. The analysis looks separately at male and female migrants because of strong gender specialisation, with the female component highly concentrated in the homecare and healthcare sectors, and the male component mainly employed in the manufacturing and construction sectors. We inquire how employment, working conditions, and wages have changed before and after the crisis in the sectors and occupations, where foreign workers are concentrated with respect to the other sectors and occupations of the Italian economy. We conclude that the disadvantage of being in a segmented labour market nevertheless allowed for positive growth of foreign employment during the recession, but it implied an even greater segregation in terms of low-skilled, unstable, and poorly paid jobs.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• Italy
• economic crisis
• segmentation
• labour market integration

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge helpful comments and suggestions by the editors and the reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Alessandra Venturini http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8858-2743

Claudia Villosio http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1709-4395

Notes

1 The authors also highlight that this result contrasts with the empirical evidence provided for other countries. For instance, Chiswick and Miller (2009) show that for the United States education is the key factor determining access to high-paying occupations for immigrants when compared to natives.

2 This model has also been described by Pastore, Salis, and Villosio (2013) as a ‘low-cost immigration model’.

3 Internal EU mobility is also perceived as very limited compared to its potential; see Recchi (2015).

4 For an update analysis of intra-European migrations, see Salamonska and Recchi (2016).

5 The same has happened in Spain.

6 Due to a major revision of the classification of economic activity that has affected data collected from year 2008 onwards, the distributions in 2005 and 2013 are not fully comparable and some misalignments may occur. Data not shown but available upon request.

7 Occupations are identified according to the Isco88 (data up to 2009) and Isco08 (data form 2010 onwards) classification at three-digit level.

8 Occupations have been selected on the Isco88 classification according to the largest share of foreign employment over employment in each occupation and of foreign employment over total foreign employment at three-digit level in 2008. For male, the occupations selected and the corresponding ISCO codes are: construction workers (Isco88 = 931 and 71); machine operators and assemblers (Isco88 = 82 and 932); domestic workers (Isco88 = 913); street vendors (Isco88 = 911); transport workers (isco88 = 933); and agricultural workers (Isco88 = 921). For females, they are: domestic workers (Isco88 = 913); housekeeping and restaurant service workers (Isco88 = 512); personal care and related workers (Isco88 = 513); and building cleaners (Isco88 = 714). From 2010 on, Eurostat LFS data make use of the Isco08 classification of occupations. Data on occupation for this period have been selected according to the corresponding table provided. Data are largely comparable before and after the change in the ISCO classifications; however, the issue of comparability across the two ISCO classifications cannot be completely ruled out and be should kept in mind while interpreting the data.

9 A comparison with natives shows that the share of the low educated in MigOcc is lower among foreigners than natives by 11 points among males and 20 points among females, confirming the over-qualification of migrants in the Italian labour market.

10 This analysis is similar to Dustmann and Frattini (2011) which however refers to year 2009 only.

Additional information

Funding

Claudia Villosio also acknowledges Compagnia di San Paolo and the University of Torino  for financial support through grant ‘progetti di Ateneo/CSP – Anno 2014 – Addressing H2020’.