Socioeconomic Integration of refugees and asylum seekers in Italy.

Abstract

In 2015, more than one million people crossed the Mediterranean into Europe, fleeing their homes and the dire situations in places like Syria, Libya, and Iraq in search of a better future. Due to the geographical position and its proximity to the North African coast, Italy was one of the countries most affected by the unexpected arrival of asylum seekers crossing the Mediterranean Sea on their way to Europe. Although refugees are resilient people with marketable skills and strong motivations to build their livelihoods their socio-economic integration in host countries still remains one of the main challenges. In this paper, I explore the barriers refugees must overcome to gain access to the Italian labor market and performed a causal analysis to discover which are the root causes of these barriers to assess potential solutions. After this analysis, I built a theory of change to test if these solutions would achieve the expected outcome of improving the socio-economic integration of refugees in Italy and conclude this paper with a concrete set of recommendations for the Italian government to implement. Restoring order and confidence in Italy’s migration system is essential to counter extremist narratives and provide an opportunity for migrants to integrate better in Italy while benefiting Italian society.