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Who are immigrants? A research to discover this

While in France, Paris, the museum dedicated to the history of immigration has been opened  accompanied by debate, the fist social research on immigration conducted for the Ministry of Internal Affairs by the Makno company has been presented in Italy. The research revealed a profile, habits, jobs of the immigrants living in Italy. With some contradictions… 

Profile- 2000 immigrants and 1000 Italians were included in the sample. They were interviewed in 18 provinces selected from the point of view of the density of foreign-born population. Besides the research concerning relations between immigrants and Italians, the report focuses on the profile of immigrants living in Italy, often known superficially by Italians. Nevertheless, majority of them – more than half – seem to live in our country for more than 5 years, while 25% - 3-4 years and only 14% - 1-2 years. Perhaps, the reason is the lack of proficiency in Italian: 20% can read very well and only 10% possess good writing skills. However, half of respondents speak well enough. Despite a modest knowledge of Italian, the education level of immigrants is definitely high: 46% of immigrants are high school or university graduates, only 1,7% did not attend school, while 8% finished their studies before the age of 10 and 25% -  between 11 and 14 years. However, it seems that their education level does not correspond to their working experience.  Although more than half of them have a job (73%, while 10% are still searching for a job), their professional competence is rather low. 24% of immigrants are blue-collar workers, 12% -  caretakers, 10%  - housemaids and 8% - waitresses. Their medium salary, which many of them did not want to declare, ranges between 800 and 900 euro without opportunities for professional growth.

Home and family- Majority of the families of foreign residents in Italy (at the average, composed from 3,7 persons in contrast to 2,6 persons in the case of Italian families) rent an apartment. Many of them (29%) live together with relatives and friends, while 16% with other persons. Moreover, besides overcrowded houses, the space at their disposal is rather scarce (75 square metres in contrast to 103 square metres in the case of Italian families). Despite these conditions, it seems that foreigners prefer not to save as regards the possession of domestic appliances. In fact, apart from  dishwashers, which are in general absent in their houses, it seems that there is not much difference between them and Italians. The same situation is with other devices, such as TV sets (92% of immigrants compared to 98% of Italians), DVD players (44%) and digital cameras (30%). More foreign families have satellite dishes - 32% compared to 21% of italian- and mobile phones – 93% compared to 87%. However, it is also true that few foreigners have a fixed phone (only 25% compared to 87% of Italians). Very few foreigners can afford buying a computer because of its evidently high price (only 29% of immigrants possess them in contrast to 55% of Italians), as well as the Internet connection (22% and 47% correspondingly). It is a pity, because taking into consideration the identikit of immigrants living in Italy, outlined by the Makno company, a computer would be more useful for them.