Female immigration in Italy, as precious as it is debased: the fate of two million and 600 thousand foreign women

ROME – Since the 1970s they have been protagonists of immigration from abroad, still today the majority among foreign residents, active in associations and social participation, fundamental to the country’s welfare, but seriously penalized at work and in society. Discriminations due to the difference in gender and citizenship weigh on them, which hinder their personal affirmation and socio-economic well-being. The book “Female migrations in Italy. Pathways to affirmation beyond vulnerabilities”, the first socio-statistical study of the IDOS Study and Research Center and ofInstitute of Political Studies “S. Pius V” which analyzes the phenomenon in an organic way.

Marginalized and subordinate. Women have been protagonists of foreign immigration in Italy since its inception, yet their specific condition has long been neglected: assimilated to that of men or identified with marginal, passive and stereotyped roles. The history of female immigration in Italy, with the related data, instead speaks of dynamic women, autonomous in their paths and protagonists of their lives, but marginalized and crushed in subordinate positions by models of social and economic organization hierarchical by gender and citizenship, which expose them to mechanisms of discrimination.

Reduced job opportunities. Emblematic of this situation is their employment condition, which for decades has remained trapped in not only disadvantaged but also rigidly predetermined occupational areas and roles, which reduce both employment opportunities and social mobility and visibility in the world of work and in the collective life. Although among foreigners residing in Italy at the end of 2021, women accounted for 50.9% (almost 2.6 million), they fell to 42% among the employed (949,000) to rise again to 52.5% among the unemployed (199,000) . Furthermore, their employment rate (45.4%) is by far the lowest, compared to both the total employed (58.2%), both Italian women (49.9%) and foreign men (71, 7%), from which they are well separated by 26.3 percentage points (among Italians the gender gap is 16.7 points).

Black work. A statistical under-representation of foreign women in data on regular employment, which also refers to their wider involvement in undeclared work. Among regular female workers, almost 9 out of 10 are employed in services (87.1%) and half are divided into just 3 professions (domestic collaborators, personal care workers and office and commercial cleaners), compared of 12 among all foreigners and 45 among Italians. Thus, despite being more educated than men, female immigrants have much less chance of finding a job consistent with their qualifications: in fact, as many as 42.5% of foreign employed women are overeducated, against 25.0% of Italian workers and 32.0% of 8% of foreigners in general.

Exposed to involuntary part-time work. Furthermore, they are more exposed to involuntary part-time work, which they carry out in 30.6% of cases, i.e. almost three times as much as foreign men (11.6%) and almost double as Italians (16.5%). Consequently, they receive an average monthly salary of just 897 euros per month (-29% compared to Italian women and -27% compared to foreign men), a condition that places half of the immigrants in the poorest 20% of the population. In particular, the growing employment placement of Italian women has had as a counterpart the widespread delegation of domestic and care work to foreign women: a task that continues to fall primarily on women and which, for immigrants, translates into a penalizing access to work , which confines them to caring roles and, at the same time, sacrifices their family and emotional dimension. In the domestic sector, 70% of workers are foreigners and, among these, 85% are women.

Excluded from any form of support. Also due to the massive concentration in domestic and family collaboration, during the pandemic foreign women were more exposed to infections from Covid-19 in the workplace, which affected them in as many as 8 cases out of 10 reported by foreign workers in 2020 and 2021. To favor this high morbidity, in addition to the more difficult access of foreigners to vaccines (especially if they do not have a health card), there was the delay in the extension of priority vaccination to cohabiting domestic workers and caregivers of severely disabled people. And family assistants have also remained excluded from the support measures (unemployment fund in derogation, blocking of layoffs, one-off bonuses) or have benefited from them late (“bonus carers”).

Being a mother excludes even more. On the other hand, the condition of mother, especially if left alone in care and parenting tasks, exacerbates exclusion from work also and above all among immigrant women, highlighting a stronger collision between employment and family commitment: foreign mothers of 25 Those aged 49 with pre-school children have an employment rate (46.4%) which is decidedly lower than those without children (77.9%). In summary, if on the whole foreign workers are massively channeled and kept in subordinate work positions, among them women are further penalised, as they are channeled into essential activities (in addition to care work, also work in agriculture, services at offices, hotels and restaurants) but little recognized in their social and economic value, poorly protected and characterized by greater exploitation and undeclared work (in the domestic branch it is estimated that irregular jobs exceed those with contracts and in agriculture that amount to over 50 thousand, compared to 31,000 legal foreigners).

New forms of activism. Thus, although women of immigrant origin – both of first and new generation – express an autonomous protagonism from the male world, they move as aware subjects in the migratory flows, in the labor market and in society (where they engage with associations, new forms of activism, artistic and literary productions), they remain blocked between a strong desire for personal affirmation and chronic exposure to conditions of vulnerability, paying for cultural conditioning both in the family and in the society – of departure and of arrival – which relegate them to subordinate roles and minority (Muslim women, for example, feel more discriminated against than men in their work and have a lower employment rate when they wear the veil). It is precisely to this “absent presence” and neglected in migration, asylum and welfare policies, that the IDOS Study and Research Center and the “S. Pius V” intend to return due attention and visibility with the publication of this innovative research of its kind.