IT
Call for Papers – SINAPPSI n. 3/2024 – deadline 30th April
Labour inclusion of immigrants: between politics, economy and society
Guest editors: Maurizio Ambrosini, Madia D’Onghia
The thematic issue no. 3/2024 aims to investigate the processes, policies and implications of the inclusion of immigrants in the Italian and European labour market from an interdisciplinary perspective.
In recent years we have witnessed a resurgence of policies for recruiting workers from non-EU countries, not only high-skilled ones. In Italy, the current government has planned 450,000 entries over the next three years, at the request of business organisations.
Hence, a first thematic area for which contributions are solicited is the governance of new labor entries, including the regulatory framework.
A second thematic area relates to how immigrants fit into the labour markets of receiving countries. We know that, historically, immigrants in industrial societies arrived to fill labour shortages in manual jobs that no longer found sufficient candidates in the native labour supply. Today, the spread of exploitation affects not only so-called 3D jobs (dirty, dangerous and demanding) but also technologically advanced or socially relevant production sectors, such as logistics, care giving, the gig economy, trade and advanced industrial activities.
In addition, there is also a need for skilled labour (the most important sector internationally is healthcare) and policies to attract skilled migrants. Italy and southern Europe are characterised by relatively low levels of unemployment among migrants, but with persistent difficulties for them to access skilled positions. Hence, relevant problems of overeducation and overqualification are to be found: immigrants on average are employed in jobs that are less skilled than their levels of education and professional qualifications, and are more educated than national workers in the same occupations. The concentration of immigrant women in domestic and care work is the most obvious example. In contrast, self-employment may represent an alternative path of social mobility.
A third thematic area concerns how labour supply and demand meet, with its critical aspects. The role of migratory networks and ethnic brokers, both in regular occupations and in niches of the informal economy, stands out here. Domestic and immigrant employers can either favor paths to regularization and integration or exploit the legal and social weakness of newcomers. Discrimination is a relevant issue from several standpoints in the way immigrant workers are integrated and treated, up to and including multiple forms of exploitation, segregation and violence.
Finally, a fourth thematic area deals with the role of public decision-makers and social actors in regulating the immigrant labour market and possible proposals (including regulatory ones) to improve the current arrangements.
The topics, considered alone or intertwined, on which research contributions and reflections are called for can be summarised as follows:
- labour entry policies and their evolution over time
- effectiveness and limits of regularisation procedures (so-called sanatoriums)
- illegal forms of recruitment (“caporalato”) and working conditions
- immigrants’ working careers and related difficulties
- overqualification and overeducation
- the role of migratory networks
- migrant women in the labour market and forms of multiple discrimination
- transition to self-employment
- informal economy, labour exploitation, law enforcement and prevention policies
- access to welfare and social services
- best practices of labour inclusion and integration
- unionisation and protest movements
Under these topic, we encourage the submission of original papers (not submitted to other journals) of length between 5,000 and 8,000 words for publication in Issue 3/2024 (Full Editorial Standards are here: https://www.inapp.gov.it/rivista-sinappsi/english-version). The papers must be submitted to the editorial staff of Sinappsi ([email protected]) by April 30, 2024, in order to proceed to referee (through a double-blind peer review) following acceptance by the journal’s Scientific/Editorial Committee. Authors are nonetheless encouraged to notify the editors in advance (by February 15, 2024) of their interest in submitting a paper, indicating ita title, authors, language (Italian or English) and topic.
CONTACTS
The editorial staff: [email protected]