Foreign resident population in Italy: a “local labour market areas” approach

Mauro Albani, Instituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT)
Giancarlo Gualtieri, Instituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT)
Antonella Guarneri, Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT)

The aim of this study is to analyse the main characteristics of foreign population in Italy and its development in the last few years. The strong relationship between labour market and foreign people distribution suggested us to use “local labour market areas” (“sistemi locali del lavoro”) in order to draw the geography of this population throughout the national territory. “Local labour market areas” are 686 and have been created on the basis of daily work transfers deducted by the last census data. They correspond to aggregations of local administrative units (“comuni”) contiguous one to the other and constitute areas geographically and statistically comparable. To map the different aspects of the immigration in Italy we decided to use data drawn by the Istat survey on foreign resident population that provides yearly data on resident foreign population disaggregated at a sufficient territorial level. The reproductive choices are a crucial step in the immigrants’ integration process and in the decision between definitive and temporary migration. The growing importance of immigrants’ second generation in Italy tempted us to highlight this phenomenon. Istat yearly survey on the new-borns collects information about live births of resident population in Italy from each local administrative unit. In addiction to the calculation of main indicators about the consistence, the incidence and the growth of foreign population and foreign births, we will carry out an analysis by citizenship. “Local labour market areas” represent a privileged framework to show migrants’ behaviours. We expect observing a highly differentiated geography on the basis of citizenship. Whereas some communities show a scattered distribution others are concentrated in particular areas. If we take into consideration the citizenship approach the growth and the size of each community seem to define different models.