Migrant women in a crisis country

Abstract

What are the problemsmigrants –and especially migrant women- face in Italy since the beginning of the economic crisis, which has been reinforced by the austerity policies imposed by the Germany-lead European Union? Recent data show thatunemploymentis growing among foreigners, reaching the number of318.000 persons in the second half of 2012 and 385.000 in the first half of 2013 on 2 millions and 334.000 active foreigners .Moreover, these data indicate that the percentage of unemployment is now higher among the foreigners than among the Italians: this is a recent trend -until 2010 the opposite was true (Minister the Lavoro, 2013).At the same time, the demand for domestic work, after a brief and limited decline in 2010 and 2011, is growing. There are structural reasons to this paradox. The demand in domestic services is a consequence of theabsence of available public services to children and, especially, to elderly. In the last twenty years, the role of domestic work to persons has become crucial for elderly care, responding to a specific demographic problem –as the aging population. Services to the person -often in a situation of co-residence with the employer, without residential autonomy-have mostly employed foreigners- for the majority women. In 2012, foreigners represented almost the half of the employed in services to the person: 467.565 on a total of 982.975 (47,6%) (Minister the Lavoro, 2013). These numbers concern migrants having a regular contract, but it is well known that this sector is characterized by the informal and undeclared work. Consequently the number of foreigners employed in domestic service is certainly higher.