Immigrant Women in Southern Europe: Social Exclusion, Domestic Work and Prostitution in Italy

Abstract

The feminization of migration flows is an important trend in contemporary international migration. Women are playing an increasingly important role in all types of migration in all regions of the world (Castles and Miller, 1993, p. 8). Female migration is part of a global change in migratory phenomena affecting both the sending and the receiving countries. In the sending countries, ‘emigration is one aspect of the social crisis which accompanies integration into the world market and modernisation’ (Castles and Miller, 1993, p. 3). In addition, urbanization in these countries deeply modifies lifestyles and gender roles. In the receiving countries — and nowhere is this more true than in Southern Europe — changes in the labour market and the production system have affected the demand for labour, which is growing in the tertiary sector and reduced in the industrial sector. At the same time, the informal economy is growing and developing. In this new economic landscape, the demand for female labour in the tertiary sector, including services to private persons, has increased. Hence the feminization of migration into Southern Europe corresponds rather precisely to this increase in demand for workers to fill ‘female’ jobs.