Traces in the shadow: Occupational outcomes of previously undocumented migrants in Italy
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| Author | Rocco Molinari,Roberto Impicciatore,Livia Elisa Ortensi |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.13144 |
International Migration. 2023;61:75–101.
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75
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imig
Received: 12 Sep tember 2022
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Revised: 1 Februa ry 2023
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Accepted: 31 March 20 23
DOI: 10 .1111/imig .13144
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Traces in the shadow: Occupational outcomes of
previously undocumented migrants in Italy
Rocco Molinari1 | Roberto Impicciatore1 | Livia Elisa Or tensi1
This is an open ac cess article und er the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which
permits us e and distributio n in any medium, provid ed the original wor k is properly cited , the use is non-comme rcial and no
modificat ions or adaptatio ns are made.
© 2023 The Autho rs. International Migration published by John Wi ley & Sons Ltd on behalf of I nternational Org anization for
Migration.
1Departme nt of Statistical S ciences “Paolo
Fortunati ”, University of Bolog na, Bologna,
Italy
Correspondence
Rocco Molinar i, Department of St atistical
Sciences “Pa olo Fortunati”, Uni versity of
Bologna, via d elle Belle Arti 41, 4 0126,
Bologna, It aly.
Email: rocco.molinari@unibo.it
Abstract
Using a repr esentative sample of currently le gal third-
country immigrant s in Italy, obtained from the Social
Condition and Int egration of For eign Citizens s urvey,
this article exa mines the long- term labour market conse-
quences of previous undocumented spells. F irst, formerly
undocumented immigrant s are identified using retrospec-
tive info rmation on respondents' legal status . Second,
immigrants are classified a ccording to the duration of ir-
regular spells before the achievement of the firs t residence
permit. Thir d, current labour market o utcomes are investi-
gated to account for the endogeneity und erlying the previ-
ous undocumented histor y. Results show that even though
formerly undocumented immigrants are more likely to
participate in the labour market, they ar e more likely to be
employed in underqual ified occupations than continuously
legal immig rants. The du ration of the irregular experience
affects occupational qualification negatively, among both
men and women. T he lack of legal entry channe ls and poli-
cies to plan and regulate migration to Italy may reinforce la-
bour market segmentation, exp osing migrants to long- term
occupational downgrade.
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MOLINARI et al.
INTRODUCTION
In t he summer of 20 20, Italy launched a new regularis ation camp aign to promote t he legalis ation of undocu-
mented migrants.1 Moti vated by t he neces sity to se cure irr egular migrant s' healt h needs du ring the Covid- 19 pa n-
demic and to address labour shortages in the agricultural sector, this regularisation programme actually represents
the umpteenth “one - off” weak po licy response to long- standing unaddressed, u nresolved issues.
On the one hand, Italy, over the last decades, has offered broad opportunities to the spontaneo us, unautho-
rised flows of migrants occurr ing in response to several pull fac tors, including a shortage of low- skilled labour in
its dualistic and segmented labour market (Colombo & Dalla- Zuanna, 2019), a well- es tablished informal econo my2
(Reyneri, 2003) and the commodif ication of welfare due to th e rising burden of elder- c are (Degiuli, 2010). O n the
other hand, historic ally a country of emigration, Italy has suf fered a structural delay in the definit ion of systematic
immigration law (Einaudi, 20 07; EMN, 2005). Ex- post regularisation campaigns have b een recurr ently used to
reduce irregular migration stocks. The first campaign to address the entire undocumented immigrant population
took p lace in 1982. Forty years la ter, the cou ntry stil l struggle s with its histor ical immigra tion policy 3 vacuum
(Colombo & Dalla- Zuanna, 2019) whose conse quences on migrants' lif e trajectories are not we ll known.
As migran ts have become essential to the Italian market , questions ari se about how t heir legal sta tus trajec-
tories and especi ally the time spe nt as undocumented contribute to their well- documen ted occupatio nal pen-
alty. Con sidering the trade- off be tween unemp loyment and job qualit y that c haracterises the incorpo ration of
migrants in Europe (Ballarino & Panichella, 2015; Reyneri & Fullin, 2011), imm igrants' ris k of une mployment is
hardly any greater than for natives in Italy (Fullin, 2011; Fullin & Reyneri, 20 11). However, immigrants do suffer a
severe penalty in terms of wages and occupational qualification, facing high risks of being trapped in low- quality
jobs thro ughout their careers (Fellini & Guetto, 2019; Panichella et al., 2021; Venturini & Villosio, 20 08). In th is
framework, among the factors affe cting the i mmigrant occupati onal penalty in Italy, the role of leg al status has
largely remaine d unexplored. Nationally representative studies are generally targeted at legal immigrant resi-
dents. Furthermore, the justifiably strong focus on the lack of relapse into irregular status and the labour market
participation of regularised migrants as indicators of success in evaluating regularisation policies (Carfagna, 2002;
Kra ler, 2009; Levins on, 2005) may over look cru cial iss ues rela ted to long - term integra tion and economi c penali sa-
tion of migrant s even after their regulari sation.
So far, mos t evidence on t he occupational penalty of und ocumented migrant s (as concerns w ages and other
job- qu ality aspec ts) has been collec ted in the USA and relies on immi grants' curr ently obser ved— or inferred—
legal s tatus (Borjas & Cassidy, 2019; Hall & Greenma n, 2015; Hall et al., 2019). However, despite its relevance,
this approac h usually overlooks the fact that a su bstantial propor tion of the current immigrant workforce legally
residing in Western societies has formerly experienced undocumented spells, for which the consequences remain
largely und erstudied. This lacuna is particu larly noticeable in European countrie s, especially in S outhern Europe,
because of the lar ge accumulation of irregular migration fl ows and the recurrent im plementation of ex- post le-
galisation programmes (Colombo & Dalla- Zuanna, 2 019; King & DeBono, 2013; Vogel et al., 20 11). Empirical ev-
idence on the nexus betwe en previous experience as undocum ented migrant s and l abour market outcomes in
European co untries is almo st non- exis tent, primarily due to subst antive data lim itations. Previou s studies in the
European context that examine the r elationship bet ween legal s tatus and l abour market o utcomes have al most
exclusively focussed on EU status (Fellini & Gue tto, 2022; Ruhs, 2017) or refugee s tatus acquisitio n (Cheung &
Phillimore, 2014; Ortensi, 2015), larg ely ignoring the p roblem of the absen ce of a legal right to reside in the des-
tination country.
This stu dy aims at filling this knowledge gap and contrib uting to a better under standing of the mechanisms
underlying im migrants' labour market dis advantages in the Italian con text. To investigate the long- te rm effects of
the undoc umented experien ce, we utilise data from th e Social Condition and I ntegration of Foreign Citizens (SCIF )
survey, which provides an unprecedented opportunity to explore previously undocumented experiences among
migrants dur ing their initial settl ement in Italy.
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