L'immigrazione latinoamericana in Europa e in Italia. Spunti di analisi statistico-demografica.

The aim of this paper is to present a statistical and demographic overview of the Latin American immigrants in Europe and a more detailed examination of the case of Italy. Over the last few years Latin American immigration – once concerning almost exclusively the United States of America – has reached a certain statistical importance also in Europe and has experienced an outstanding rise in some Mediterranean countries, particularly Spain. Factors such as the cultural and linguistic closeness, the strengthening of the ancient colonial ties, a general good acceptance from the countries of arrival, together with the well-known “migration chains” dynamics make a further increase of the flows highly probable. Generally the Latin American population in Europe shows high participation in the labour force, is mostly young and highly feminized (also because of a concentration in specific work sectors). In addition to taking active part in the labour market of the countries of arrival, Latin American migrants play an important role in the countries of origin, thanks to the substantial remittances they send. As far as Italy is concerned, the Latin Americans are an increasingly significant component of the foreign population, although they represent less than 10% of its total. Particularly concentrated in the Central and North-Western regions, they are nonetheless settled throughout the country and show a distinct heterogeneity in their characteristics.