Chinese Migrants in Italy: A Socio-economic Portrait

Abstract

Italy is one of the European countries hosting the largest number of Chinese immigrants. In the early 1980’s, the first Chinese new migrants came to Italy, where they would find an employment in the Italian textile industry. Since then, Chinese overseas have played an important role in the field of fashion, a sector of the Italian economy with a high demand in production and manual work. Petty trading and small-scale enterprises are also representations of the Chinese population’s activity in Italy. This article provides statistics concerning the Chinese migrants as an economically active person and the activities of the Chinese community in Italy as a whole.The authors analyze the phenomenon of Chinese labour migration to Italy from the point of view of the “push and pull factors” migration theory. This article illustrates the main factors leading Chinese citizens to leave their home country and shift to Italy, where China turns out to be the point of origin for one of the largest communities of extra-EU immigrants. It is shown that for the Chinese, Italy is a destination country, which is largely due to the already existing migrant network. As a case-study in the frame of this analysis, the authors take Prato (a municipal township located in Tuscany), renowned for hosting the largest Chinatown in Europe (so called “Chinese exclave”).