The foreign immigrants’ employment in the Caserta labour market: irregularity and economic discrimination in a southern Italian province

Salvatore Strozza, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Raffaele Ferrara, University of Naples Federico II
Eleonora Mussino, Università di Roma

The insertion of immigrants into the labour market shows large differences between the various Italian territories. In the Center and North the percentage of foreigners on the whole resident population is higher than in the rest of the country (in some areas more then 10%). This is mainly due to the fact that there are more job opportunities, not only in the metropolitan areas but also in the industrial districts and in the other towns of medium and little dimension. The presence of foreigners is much lower (3-4%) in the South and on the Islands where the occupational possibilities are mainly limited to seasonal or casual works with an high risk of employment instability. The province of Caserta is one of the main Southern receiving areas and a perfect example of the Mediterranean migration model characterized by instable jobs, mainly as seasonal employment (agriculture and tourism), building industry and family service (elderly care, baby sitter, colf). The aim of this work is to analyze the employment situation of foreign immigrants using data from the sample survey on “Integration of immigrants in the province of Caserta” on about 1,200 foreigners coming from developing countries and Central and Eastern Europe (including new EU citizens). A thorough analysis will be done on the situation of economic discrimination and exploitation of labour for difference status of residence. Using a multinomial logistic regression we can estimate which demographic, human and social capital, migration and employment characteristics affect the different levels of exploitation status. We will also estimate the wage function for various socio demographic profile of the foreign immigrants (as gender and status of residence) and apply decomposition methods to evaluate which part of the differential pay is attributable to the different socio-demographic characteristics of the considered groups and which part to the economic discrimination.