MIGRATION AND HUMAN CAPITAL IN ITALIAN AGRICULTURAL LABOUR MARKET: A CASE STUDY ANALYSIS

Rino Ghelfi and Sergio Rivaroli

No 57508, 113th Seminar, December 9-11, 2009, Belgrade, Serbia from European Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: During the last years Italy, a country characterized by a long history of emigration, has seen a quickly growth of the phenomenon of immigration. Our Nation seems to be a “docking point” for new and substantial flow of immigrants mainly from Eastern Europe looking for new work opportunities. The profile of these people is usually characterized by high level of education as well as flexibility and adaptability. For the national economy in general, and for the agricultural sector in particular, this new migration flows represent an effective answer to the aversion for the agricultural job expressed by many potential autochthon workers. Which are the characteristics of extra-community agricultural labour? Which are the characteristics of migration flows linked to the agricultural labour in three provinces of one of the main agricultural regions in Italy? Based on National Institute of Welfare information’s (INPS), the research underlines the diversification of this phenomenon among Italian regions as well as its dynamism. In Italy, during the last five years, the proportions of foreign agricultural workers increased up to 50%, and peaked in four Italian regions: Friuli Venezia Giulia, Campania, Piemonte and Emilia-Romagna. In Emilia-Romagna, in particular, immigrants represent almost a quarter of total agricultural workers and most of them aged less than forty years. The analysis of information about labour market in the agricultural sector in some Emilia-Romagna provinces shows that immigrants are concentrated in few farms. Farmer prefers to engage homogeneous ethnic groups to assure cultural affinity among the employees. In the local agricultural labour market the immigrants coming from Eastern Europe, in particular from Poland and Romania, are aged between 22 and 36 years, are unemployed in their country, they have a driving license and a good knowledge of Italian and English language.

Keywords: Agribusiness; Labor and Human Capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 8
Date: 2009-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mig
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/57508/files/Ghelfi%20Rino%20cover.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:ea113a:57508

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.57508

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 113th Seminar, December 9-11, 2009, Belgrade, Serbia from European Association of Agricultural Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().