Italy
It is possible to observe that Italy attracts migrant workers who are placed in services and commerce, rather than highly skilled ones. This situation is due to the socio-economic conditions that define the Italian society of the present time: economic difficulties in general, socio-economic differences between geographic areas and social classes, gender issues, discrimination, etc. As a final result, even qualified migrant women do not find a good job.
Speaking of both social and labour integration of migrant women as a whole, the issue of their in/visibility emerges from various studies. The social reality experienced by migrant women has been defined as a triple oppression (or marginalisation): social, economic, and cultural (Campani 2007: 5-6); such a situation derives from their general condition of being migrants, their employment in socio-economic niches (esp. domestic, hence private sector), and their absence in the public sphere. The phenomenon of socio-economic niches and ethnic professionalization/specialisation particularly applies to the women working and living in Italian families as domestic workers or caregivers, mostly native to Eastern Europe (e.g. Ukraine, Romania), and South America (e.g. Peru), plus some other contexts of origin (e.g. Sri Lanka, Cape Verde, Somalia).
As for their labour integration, the interviewees (Italy) indicated several difficulties in finding employment, and remarked the issue of professional recognition: migrant women are confronted with the impossibility of getting their professional qualifications recognised being achieved in their countries of origin, which is perceived and interpreted as a form of institutional discrimination.
Such a situation affects many migrant women, both those who would like to get employed, or to develop their own entrepreneurship and start a business: in this regard, training courses promoted and funded by local, regional, national, and international/EU bodies definitely offer themselves as an integration tool for migrant women.
Another aspect, emerged from the fieldwork with migrant women, regards the overcoming of “traditional female” roles that further affect their socio-economic integration in the receiving society: meaning that there is a strong need of a constant work with migrant women (and men) aimed at their inclusion by promoting a variety of lifestyles in order to overcome their role of wives and mothers in their native contexts, i.e. families or communities.
As emerged during the research, migrant women express worries regarding access to a retirement/pension system, which especially applies to the women employed in domestic (care and assistance) sector.
Given their social conditions, migrant women are frequently driven to find jobs by using informal channels, i.e. support networks of relatives, friends, migrant associations, NGOs, rather than through public institutional resources.
Some specific strategies of professional requalification and labour integration emerged from the research, meaning that a part of immigrant women try to get socially and economically integrated by referring to particular sectors, that can be subdivided in 4 contexts:
1) migrant services: mediation (cultural-linguistic m.), associations, reception sector i.e. services for asylum seekers – these contexts usually do not provide constant nor guaranteed livelihood;
2) participation in training courses, especially those promoted, organised, and funded by the EU, though often implemented through the network of local NGOs;
3) participation in EU projects;
4) change of one’s professional field, alone or together with the respective husband/partner.
“Emigration as a Strategy for Reaching Personal Autonomy and Professional Fulfilment” https://viw.pixel-online.org/case_view.php?id=NDU=: in this story, the protagonist was able to realise her professional dream thanks to a European programme of training and labour inclusion.
“When Education is not a Synonymous with Recognition for an Immigrant Woman” https://viw.pixel-online.org/case_view.php?id=NDc=: this story reports the difficulty of an immigrant woman in getting a position as a teacher in a public school: this difficulty is due to the impossibility to get recognised her professional qualifications obtained in her country of origin.
References
Campani G., 2007, Gender and Migration in Italy: State of the Art, Working Paper No. 6 – WP4, January 2007, FeMiPol Project, University of Frankfurt.
(https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.585.925&rep=rep1&type=pdf)
This paper addresses socio-economic integration of female migrants in Europe, on the example of Italy and the Mediterranean model. Special attention is paid to some important concepts, such as plurality of voices, triple oppression of migrant women, and their role as active subjects.
Castagnone E., Eve M., Petrillo E. R., Piperno F., coll. di Chaloff J., 2007, Madri migranti. Le migrazioni di cura dalla Romania e dall’Ucraina in Italia: percorsi e impatto sui paesi di origine, Working Papers, 34/2007, Programma MigraCtion, CeSPI, Roma & Forum Internazionale ed Europeo di Ricerche sull’Immigrazione (FIERI), Torino.
(https://www.cespi.it/it/ricerche/madri-migranti-le-migrazioni-di-cura-dalla-romania-e-dallucraina-italia-percorsi-e-impatto)
This paper addresses a research on female migrations from Romania and Ukraine to Italy with the goal of exploring the strategies adopted by female workers and assessing the consequences of the “informal system of transnational welfare” for themselves and their families and, more generally, for both host and native societies.
Romens A.-I., 2021, “Don’t let people walk all over you”: Migrant women with tertiary education coping with essentialism in Italy and France, AG AboutGender 10(20), pp. 231-263.
(https://riviste.unige.it/index.php/aboutgender/article/view/1317)
This paper analyses how migrant women with tertiary education cope, resist, and eventually challenge the essentialist processes they face at work and in daily interactions.