Poverty and deprivation of immigrants vs. natives in Italy

Abstract

Purpose – Italy has become a migrant receiving country and it has to face with the problem of social inclusion of immigrants. The purpose of this paper is to measure the gap on poverty and deprivation between immigrants and natives since manifest conditions of both of them are an important signal, although not exclusively, of social exclusion. Design/methodology/approach – Poverty analysis typically relies on a single monetary variable such as income and it is characterized by a simple dichotomization of the population into poor and non-poor. In this paper the authors stress the importance of using a multidimensional and fuzzy approach in order to study disparities between immigrants and natives. The authors cover several of the multifaceted aspects of resources necessary to maintain adequate living standards in a developed country. With the fuzzy methodology, the authors also overcome any limitation of the conventional approach based on the simple dichotomization of the phenomenon. Findings – The empirical analysis is based on data from two official surveys. The authors find that between Italian and immigrant households there are significant differences in poverty and deprivation levels, with a strong disadvantage for the latter. The authors argue that any serious attempt to reduce poverty and deprivation must now include comprehensive reforms in the nation's immigration policies if they are to be taken seriously. Originality/value – The paper makes an original contribution to the understanding of inequality between immigrants and natives, by studying a complex phenomena such as poverty and deprivation in a multidimensional perspective using a fuzzy approach.

Studying Income Inequality of Immigrant Communities in Italy

“…Finally, a long theoretical and empirical tradition having its roots in the Chicago School research (Park 1950) and then taken up by supporters of the ''assimilationist model'', identifies the duration of stay as a key factor in bridging the gap between immigrants and natives. The paper of Berti et al (2014) based on the same dataset as the one that is used in this analysis supports the above-mentioned hypothesis with reference to the risk of poverty. They found that the length of stay seems to produce beneficial effects in terms of the risk of poverty even if for almost all of the deprivation indices considered in the multidimensional analysis of poverty, the gap between immigrants and natives does not decrease with time.…”

“…Within a household where at least one member is a foreigner, a further classification is made between (1) households composed of individuals with the citizenship of a more developed country 5 (MDC), possibly living together with some natives; (2) households composed of all members with the citizenship of a country with Strong Migration Pressures (SMP) and (3) households that include both natives and foreigners from countries with SMP (mixed households). The second of the above groups can be described as immigrant households, according to a definition that has been already used for the Italian case in previous studies (Berti et al 2014).…”

Childhood and capability deprivation in Italy: a multidimensional and fuzzy set approach

“…The computation of the deprivation indicators of the IFR approach involves a long process as reported also in Berti et al (2014) and Betti et al (2015). In details, the IFR method follows seven main steps: (1) identification of the relevant survey items; (2) transformation of the items into the [0,1] interval, (3) exploratory and/or confirmatory factor analysis to define the latent dimensions; (4) computation of the weights 8 within each dimension; (5) calculation of the scores for each dimension; (6) calculation of an overall score and the a parameter as for the FM measure; (7) calculation of the deprivation indices.…”

Targeting Policies for Multidimensional Poverty and Social Fragility Relief Among Migrants in Italy, Using F-FOD Analysis

“…Currently, the proportion of families living below the national (relative) poverty line among the families entirely composed of foreigners is 34.5% in 2017 (23.9% among mixed families) vs. 10.5% among Italian families (Istat 2018). Moreover, migrants are the poorest among the poor and a large number of studies in various contexts, confirm that poverty among migrants tends to be more marked and persistent than among natives in various countries (Bárcena-Martìn and Pérez-Moreno 2016; Kazemipur and Halli 2001;Lelkes 2007; de Bustillo and Anton 2011; Obućina 2014; Pastor 2014) and in Italy as well (Berti et al 2014). Various explanations have been attempted, to better account for the link between migration and poverty.…”

“…improvement of global health and wellbeing). Additionally, as many scholars acknowledge, poverty among migrants is generally more acute and persistent than among the host population (Bárcena-Martìn and Pérez-Moreno 2016; Berti et al 2014;Kazemipur and Halli 2001;Lelkes 2007; de Bustillo and Anton 2011; Obućina 2014; Pastor 2014) and so reducing migrants' poverty is a key step to reduce the overall level of poverty in the whole society, particularly in countries with large immigration flows, like Italy. This motivates the focus of the present paper, which is specifically devoted to the ranking of migrants' families, for policy targeting.…”