Punjabi irregular immigration to Italy and Spain: causes and consequences

ABSTRACT

Since 1990, an irregular migration industry has flourished in different cities of Indian Punjab because of the eagerness among young men to emigrate at any cost and increased border controls imposed by the European Union. In Europe, the majority of irregular immigrants from Punjab end up in Spain or Italy due to continuous regularisation programmes, support from social networks and the availability of informal jobs. In this paper, with a thematic analysis of 72 in-depth interviews with irregular immigrants from Punjab in Italy or Spain, their relatives in Punjab and members of the host community, this paper explores the main causes and consequences of Punjabi irregular immigration in Italy and Spain.

KEYWORDS:

• Punjabi irregular migration
• causes
• consequences
• qualitative study
• Italy
• Spain

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Nachatter Singh Garha holds PhD in Demography from the Center for Demographic Studies (CED) and the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Spain. His ongoing research is focused on the international migration, demographic and spatial analysis of immigrant groups, religious and ethnic minorities, gender relations, diversity management and integration issues.

Additional information

Funding

This research is funded by the I + D+I project Demography, Migrations and New Statistics Frontiers: Big Data, Continuous Population Registers and Administrative Records – [grant number CSO2017-85670-R] funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (PI: Andreu Domingo).