NORFACE, under the TEMPO project, funded a survey project which aimed to investigate mobility and migration patterns of Romanian migrants to Italy. The survey was conducted in January 2011 by the team of researchers at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw) in collaboration with ISMU of Milan. The location choice of the survey were main cities of Italy: Milan, Turin and Rome which are recognized as the main destination regions of Romanians who have migrated to Italy since free visa liberalization in May 2004.The survey focusses on four broad areas: the profile and migration plans of migrants, regional differences and basic characteristics; labour market patterns during the migration experience, including income and remittances; social inclusion of migrants and access to social security and the health system; and, self-assessment of the migration experience of moving to Italy.
Migration plans
The survey showed that almost half of late comers, Romanian migrants who reached Italy after January 2007, did not have a predefined migration plan whereas the early comers, those who moved after May 2004, preferred long term migration, Figure 1-4. To some extent the change of migration plans was strongly dependent on duration of stay in the destination country and the preference for long term migration was positively correlated with the length of residence. Moreover, the motives for altering migration plans, being mostly for work and family purposes, suggests the implementation of more coherent migration policies which address and facilitate, firstly, the employment of migrants into those working sectors that match with their migration preferences, (e.g. migrants with temporary migration intentions can be incentivized and channeled to work on temporary/seasonal jobs), and secondly, support family unification and family members of migrants in integrating into the labour market. Such policies would require coordination at national as well as international level and closer cooperation between destination and sending country with the aim to balance labour migration by offering the labour demanded to the destination country while at the same time protecting the needs of temporary workers.
Potential return migration
As concerns the potential return to Romania or moving to other destination countries, migrants expressed a preference for moving back to Romania and only one-third would migrate to another country indicating that temporary migration is more desirable than chain migration. In this respect, programs that promote and motivate temporary migration could accentuate circular migration. Additionally, incentives could be designed to encourage return home under hostile economic conditions or long-term unemployment, e.g. introducing voluntary return programs, agreements on transferability of pension or unemployment benefits in the country of origin.
Labour market patterns
Labour market patterns and regional differences demonstrate that four-fifths of migrants are employed. The highest share of migrants working full-time is in Rome, followed by Turin and Milan. Unemployment among Romanian migrants seems to be the highest in Milan and the lowest in Turin. A significant proportion of migrant women have jobs in the categories “Sales and services elementary job”, “Personal care and related workers” and “Housekeeping and restaurant services”. Men mostly work as “Extraction and building trades workers”, “Drivers and mobile plant operators” and “Metal, machinery and related trades workers”. A non-negligible share of migrants work without a fixed contract which makes their employment position more vulnerable and open to exploitation. In addition, the survey shows that occupational switches occurred within all categories of occupational skill levels. In particular, there has been a trend towards jobs distinguished as medium and low skilled. Moreover, comparison between education level and occupational skill level demonstrated that highly skilled migrants, especially men, are employed in jobs below their level of qualification.
Income and remittances
On the basis of the survey results although women earned less than men on average, there was an increasing trend of earnings for women and a decreasing trend for men. As concerns remittances, migrants who preferred permanent migration were less likely to remit in terms of frequency as well as in terms of amount. Moreover, the highly educated was the category of migrants who mostly chose the banking systems to transfer the remittances. Another fact is that only a very small proportion of migrants were channeling their remittances into investments. In this respect, information regarding investment opportunities should be made available not only in the host country but also in the country of origin. The banking system and the money markets should offer financial instruments that make the utilization of the system more attractive and the channeling of remittances more effective.
Access to health and social security system
A concern which is often expressed is that migrants who have access to health and social security services are more encouraged to enter or stay in a country. However, the survey rejected this hypothesis and suggests that neither receiving social security benefits nor the availability of accessing health care drives migrants’ decision to enter and remain in the destination country. However, as concerns the access to healthcare, the longer migrants plan to stay in the country, the higher the percentage of them who have access to a general practitioner/doctor and the higher the number of them whose migration decision is affected by access to such services. Accordingly, it emerges that the length of stay in the destination country matters and it confirms that there is a correlation between the duration of stay and access to social security and health services, even though such cases represent less than one-fifth of migrants.
Social integration and self-assessment of migration experience
The findings which emerged from the survey show that Romanian migrants in Italy have a good knowledge of the Italian language which is an asset and a pertinent advantage in adapting and integrating into the country of destination. Despite that good knowledge of Italian enables one to become familiar with the rights/duties in the host country and actively participate in the economic, social and political life, the Romanian migrant demonstrated a relatively low civic participation. The self-assessment of the migration experience showed among positive outcomes of migration experience "making more money", "finding a better job” and "learning a new language" while at the top of the list for negative outcomes we find "insecurity about the future", "discrimination", "negative impact on family relationship" and "doing work under the level of qualification". In overall, the life satisfaction during the migration experience affects the preference to stay, return or out-migrate. Figure 5 indicates that migrants who plan to stay shortly tend to report lower levels of life satisfaction while migrants who have long term plans of stay tend to report high levels of life satisfaction. For low levels of life satisfaction the preference goes in favour of “return to Romania” or to “out-migrate to another country”.
Such findings highlight the importance of economic and social integration issues. In this respect, comprehensive integrationprograms which guarantee social, economic, education and political rights would facilitate the involvement and integration of migrants and furthermore would be a significant step toward their social inclusion. In addition to anti-discrimination measures and interventions in favour of affordable housing, access to healthcare and family unification are considered important for migrant workers and this kind of support is necessary in accomplishing a satisfactory migration experience.
References
Mara, Isilda (2012) “Surveying Romanian migrants in Italy before and after EU accession: migration plans, labour market features and social inclusion” (NORFACE Migration Discussion Paper, 2012-24), London, 134 S; also available as wiiw Research Report No. 378, July 2012. http://www.wiiw.ac.at/?action=publ&id=details&publ=RR378
Landesmann, M., Mara, I. (2013) “The steadiness of migration plans and expected length of stay: based on a recent survey of Romanian migrants in Italy”, forthcoming, NORFACE Migration Discussion Paper series, January.
Landesmann, M., Mara, I. (2013) “Do I stay because I am happy or am I happy because I stay? Life satisfaction in migration, and the decision to stay permanently, return and out-migrate”, forthcoming, NORFACE Migration Discussion Paper series, January.
About the author:
Isilda Marais economist at The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw) where she is working on migration, labour market and social issues. Recently she has been working on a project on return migration within a large European network (TEMPO), studying Romanian migrants in Italy and she has other studies on return migration and human capital. Ms. Mara has a PhD in European economic studies from the University of Turin.
