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It is widely believed that a viable welfare state depends on achieving and maintaining a high level of solidarity amongst citizens, and that this solidarity is eroded by increasing levels of ethnic and racial diversity due to immigration. If true, there is a trade-off between a more open and accommodating approach to immigrants, on the one hand, and the maintenance of a robust welfare state. In this paper, however, we argue that claims about an inevitable trade-off between diversity and solidarity are premature. The evidence to date, and our own research, shows that a multicultural welfare state is a viable prospect.

It is widely believed that a viable welfare state depends on achieving and maintaining a high level of solidarity amongst citizens, and that this solidarity is eroded by increasing levels of ethnic and racial diversity due to immigration. If true, there is a trade-off between a more open and accommodating approach to immigrants, on the one hand, and the maintenance of a robust welfare state. In this paper, however, we argue that claims about an inevitable trade-off between diversity and solidarity are premature. The evidence to date, and our own research, shows that a multicultural welfare state is a viable prospect.

The impact of immigration on the public finances of the destination coutnries is a crucial aspect of the debate on the effects of the phenomenon. This article collects the administrative data on revenue and services to immigrants in Italy, along with estimates on other administrative data. The study is limited by the fact that the information is not homogeneous as regards the relevant aggregate and the year concerned. The positive effects of immigrants on the public finances in Italy seem quite significant.

Unofficial immigration is difficult to define precisely as it depends on national legislation, which in turn differs from country to country and is often ambiguous. It has many different causes: the attractions of economic systems and labour markets; the institutional creation of illegality by regulatory systems that raise the necessary requirements for legal entry and for staying in the country; the lack of necessary resources if repressive policies are to be more effective; the “liberal obligation” requiring democratic states to respect human rights and welcome refugees; the action of humanitarian lobbies; the bypassing of the rules and the favouring of entries by the networks of relatives and fellow-countrymen. Despite all the rhetoric, this makes necessary manoeuvres of various kinds designed to bring out the hidden part of the immigrant population: 23 out of 27 countries in the European Union have adopted them in the last ten years and at least 5 million people have regularized their status.

This article offers a particular interpretation of the changes that have taken place over the last forty years in the migration policies adopted by countries receiving migration flows. According to this interpretation the development of present-day migration policies has gradually given rise to a system of civic stratification. This way of observing the institutions linked to migration policies allows us to take a critical view both of the aspects of closure and/or openness in policies designed to integrate migrants, and of the aspects of differentiation and civic stratification of migrants It then dwells on the Italian model for regulating access and socio-juridical integration of migrants, bringing out the its distinctive features and how in line it is with the models of socio-juridical integration in other European countries.

In recent years migration has become one of the most significant aspects of present-day society, at the level of legislation, in political debate, and in the social and cultural imagination. In this dispersion and contradiction of interests the concrete reality of the migrants themselves (the real persons and their stories) tends to disappear to the point of not being recognized as a “transversal people” with inviolable human rights. Citizenship epidemiology is proposed as an operative tool that can give them back genuine visibility, which is the premise for them being able to enjoy their rights.

In this work we examine the development of citizenship laws in the world. Our analysis is based on a databank we compiled that documents this development for 162 countries in the period 1948-2001. On the basis of an econometric study our results can be summarized as follows. The original juridical tradition – the application of the jus soli rather than the jus sanguinis – continues to have an effect on current legislation. The pressure of migration tends to limit how open the legislation is, restricting the application of the jus soli. One of the factors determining greater openness is the degree of democracy and demographic stagnation.

The article deals with the impact of immigration in Europe and in the UK in particular. Laws disciplining the employing of recent migrants have become more and more restrictive and the interaction of immigration rules and labour law is damaging to the social well-being and employment of recent migrants. The article summarizes the history of immigration policies and shows that in Europe there is a common policy to reduce immigration, limit the reuniting of families and encourage professional, qualified immigrants, excluding unqualified workers. The article concludes that this policy is contradictory and damaging for the well-being of both the indigenous and migrant populations of Europe.

In Italy there are now about one million immigrant workers who are trade-union members. Various researchers have spoken of an Italian peculiarity in this connection, due to the particular commitment of the Italian unions to helping and accompanying migrants in the process of social, administrative and political integration, in which it is often difficult even to exercise their recognized rights. The article brings out how this success, in a context of profound changes in the labour market and employment structure, now makes it particularly urgent for the unions to face the problem of meeting the growing request for participation that is emerging from the immigrant component of Italian workers.

This essay analyses the events at Rosarno to identify the reasons and roots of the problems behind the revolt of the immigrant workers. The fundamental nucleus of these questions is the serious exploitation of workers and the marked social isolation in which these farm workers were living. Nevertheless, their living conditions and salaries were absolutely in line with those of immigrant farm-workers in other parts of Southern Italy. To prevent a repetition of these events, the institutions should take responsibility for the conditions of immigrant farm-workers, particularly seasonal ones.

The article analyses the informal negotiation practices of carers for the elderly in their daily interaction with those responsible for family organization where they work. The analysis seeks to deconstruct the often unexamined assumption that these work situations in the family create only forms of servitude and exploitation. Observing the strategies of demands and negotiation used by these foreign workers, we can see practices that remodel power, rights and freedom, giving back to these women an agency that is too often denied.

Italian regulations are extremely innovative and offer many safeguards for the protection of the health of immigrants, whether official or unofficial, but they are not recognized and applied uniformly throughout the country. The strengthening of the average level in terms of autonomy and responsibilities has actually encouraged a differentiation in management and organization of regional health services. As regards the supply of services for unofficial foreigners the case of Lombardy analysed here brings out how much regional autonomy can lead to a marginal direct involvement, while services are supplied by private bodies. Describing how the regulations developed and analysing two associations that offer health services to unofficial immigrants, the article brings out the most significant targets in the health protection of this social group as well as the distinctive features of the Lombardy model.

The increased presence of pupils from immigrant families has been without doubt the most significant change to involve the Italian school system in recent years. A survey by Censis for the Cnel, in relation to the primary and middle school has brought out the problems that schools and families are facing, possible solutions that have been tried or that are feasible, and the crucial problems to be solved. It reminds us of the need for an overall rethinking of educational policy so as to identify priorites and costs, and to guarantee an overall improvement in the quality of teaching and a modernization of the system, two goals that can no longer be deferred. Specifically, there seem to be three areas for effective, large-scale intervention: in the syllabus, in staff-student and student-student relations, and in general organization.

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The article takes an aspect of female migrant care work that is fundamental for social policies, but relatively ignored: the care drain, and, more generally, the social effects of emigration on the fabric of family and community life in the countries of origin. After discussing the main facets of the welfare-migration relation from the point of view of the society of origin, it offers some observations on the potentialities and limits of policies to combat the care drain, and on the ambivalent effects of migration on welfare, both social protection and at the same time the creation of new needs and inequalities.

The article takes an aspect of female migrant care work that is fundamental for social policies, but relatively ignored: the care drain, and, more generally, the social effects of emigration on the fabric of family and community life in the countries of origin. After discussing the main facets of the welfare-migration relation from the point of view of the society of origin, it offers some observations on the potentialities and limits of policies to combat the care drain, and on the ambivalent effects of migration on welfare, both social protection and at the same time the creation of new needs and inequalities.

People trafficking with a view to exploitation is a form of slavery that is growing today in that it is linked to globalization. The most widespread forms are trafficking with a view to exploiting labour and above all trafficking women and minors for sexual exploitation. The essay illustrates the essential terms of the international definition of trafficking and then examines the characteristics of the trafficking of women for the sex market in Italy and its main causes. It also dwells on the shortcomings in the protecting of the rights of victims in Europe and Italy, suggesting that effectively combating the phenomenon would require less restrictive and more welcoming migration policies and policies that respected the rights of prostitutes.

What are the rights and duties of citizens who live outside their country? Political theory so far has concentrated on the access of immigrants to the citizenship of countries where they settle, and has dealt little with their relations with their country of origin. External citizenship is, however, increasingly important for a large number of migrants as well as for the countries of origin, many of which have radically changed their attitude towards the expatriates. I have proposed the criterion of stakeholders to define those who should be able to request the status and rights of external citizenship. This article summarizes how this reasoning refers to the acquisition and loss of citizenship outside the territory of a state, to the right of return and the right to vote abroad, and the duties connected with citizenship, such as military service, paying taxes and the duty to vote.

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The article reviews the developments and outcomes of the reform of the role of aid societies, which culminated in the approval of law 152/2001 which gave these bodies a new centrality in the protection and promotion of social rights in the logics of the development of the welfare state. The text of the law is the outcome of a long reflection on the nature and function of aid societies, the exclusive nature of the role, the characteristics and requisites of the organizing bodies, and the definition of the new functions to be added to the traditional ones. It underlines how law 152 assigns the aid societies an important role as social secretariat.

The article highlights the different dimensions and meanings that the concept of individualization has assumed in the debate on the changes in welfare: from individualization as a process concerning the nature of the new social risks to individualization as a more general factor of change in contemporary societies, in the dual and ambivalent interpretations that can be derived from it – or as a gradual loss of certainties and individualistic regression, but also as the possibility of liberation for individuals who are more alone than they were in the past, but at the same with more self-determination and freer to make to choose their own destiny. This second interpretation also brings out the possibility of a new paradigm whose aim is to remove the barriers that intervene at every level of individual fulfilment, and in this perspective some social and labour policies are analysed that are connected with empowerment.

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