EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Unemployed Migrants Coping with the Economic Crisis. Romanians and Moroccans in Italy

Devi Sacchetto () and Francesca Alice Vianello ()
Additional contact information
Devi Sacchetto: University of Padua
Francesca Alice Vianello: University of Padua

Journal of International Migration and Integration, 2016, vol. 17, issue 3, No 11, 839-852

Abstract: Abstract The current economic crisis is worsening migrants’ living conditions and thus their social and economic integration into EU countries. However, recent literature has not sufficiently considered the strategies that unemployed migrants adopt to cope with this transformation. This article explores the economic and social impact of the recession on migrant workers. In particular, it analyses the coping strategies of unemployed Moroccan and Romanian migrants in Italy, who are the biggest national groups of foreigners. Drawing on 170 in-depth interviews carried out in one of the most dynamic areas of northeast Italy, we find that Moroccan and Romanian migrants adopt different strategies in order to cope with unemployment: the first suffer more from discrimination than the latter in the labour market but can enjoy the economic and social support of extended family and religious community, while for Romanians, it is easier to find a new job, because they can rely on a more diversified social network. Furthermore, migrants of both national groups rarely return to their country of origin, but Moroccans (non-EU nationals) seem to be geographically more mobile than Romanians (EU nationals), who show a resolve to remain in Italy. Finally, unemployed migrants are minimizing their living costs in a very similar way. This paper also studies other differences among interviewees that arise from their gender, age and family model.

Keywords: Coping strategies; Economic crisis; Italy; Moroccan migration; Romanian migration; Migrant workers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12134-015-0440-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:joimai:v:17:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s12134-015-0440-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... tudies/journal/12134

DOI: 10.1007/s12134-015-0440-2

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Migration and Integration is currently edited by Lori Wilkinson

More articles in Journal of International Migration and Integration from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-20
Handle: RePEc:spr:joimai:v:17:y:2016:i:3:d:10.1007_s12134-015-0440-2