Migration and the economic crisis in 2010 Italy

The current economic crisis, which affected all the developed countries, has deeply affected economic productivity also in Italy. The unemployment rate changes rapidly and tends to increase, while the job market becomes more and more selective The immigrants are one of the first categories to be deeply affected by the crisis, with marked differences among the most developed regions (most of all the ones in Northern and Central Italy), and the least developed ones (as in Southern Italy). Within every region, though, there are noticeable differences between metropolitan areas, manufacturing districts, tourist districts, agricultural districts and marginal areas. Our paper tries to offer a glimpse over the forced change in the migration projects that took place in the different Italian contexts during the economic crisis. Given the difficulty of obtaining updated statistical data about the shift in professional activities and about the returns of migrants to their countries of origin, we use mainly updated reports from a few selected research institutions. In particular, we will try to identify what are the relevant problems that affect the integration in schools and in the residential patterns. The recent changes that occurred in 2010 are caused by the new economic situation. We will also briefly mention in our analysis the role that media discourses and the political ideology have in encouraging return migration, by reinforcing negative stereotypes, racial discrimination, the "fear of the other", and other successful electoral campaigns targeted at making immigrants potential scapegoats for the economic crisis.