Migration and the Labour Market: Ukrainian Women in the Italian Care Sector

Abstract

As Europe experiences significant demographic transformation and cultural change, the rate of care migration is growing sharply. This phenomenon has been encouraged by the structural deficit of the labour market in response to the shortage of workers available for formal and informal welfare systems. This research describes the main features and implications of the Italian care worker labour force, using the story of the Ukrainian women who work there as a case study. The analyses are based on data from the Italian ‘Rilevazione continua sulle forze lavoro’ or RCFL (Labour Force Survey) covering the last 10 years (2007–2016). The RCFL data shows that the population of care workers in Italy is a quickly growing sector, responsible for 19% of employed women in care sector over that period. RCFL data also reveals that these positions have been filled almost exclusively by Ukrainian women who have immigrated. However, despite recording high employment rates for this group, they are highly segregated, both vertically and horizontally, and they experience difficulty integrating and job-education mismatching. In conclusion, this article explores relevant issues for new migration and integration policies.