Italy and population decline: do we need more immigrants?

There was broad consensus on the need for Italy to resort to increasing numbers of migrants to cope with the difficulties of companies in finding personnel and the demographic decline. The government has therefore approved the flows decree that in 2026-28 authorises the entry of just under 500,000 foreign workers, almost 50,000 more than in the previous three-year period (in which as many as 966,000 foreigners entered net of those who left), in the hope - all to be verified - that the increase in legal entries will reduce irregular ones. However, it is legitimate to wonder whether it is preferable for Italy to welcome new substantial influxes of migrants rather than aim to integrate into the labour market the many Italians and foreigners who are currently outside or on the margins of it, as well as to question the long-term and partly irreversible effects of mass immigration on host societies.

Let us therefore start from how immigration in Italy has taken place, an anomaly in the history of migratory phenomena, because never has a country attracted so many migrants (between regular and irregular there are just under 6 million foreigners residing in Italy today, plus the almost 2 million who have acquired citizenship) despite having a high percentage of natives (primarily young people and women) outside or on the margins of the labour market. In fact, the employment rate in Italy, although slowly growing, is much lower than in other advanced economies. If, for example, we had that of the Netherlands, we would today have about 30% more employed people than we do.

This Italian anomaly is part of a growth model - or socio-economic equilibrium - that has generated a number of undesirable effects, including:

- Widespread poverty among immigrants. Many of them do not work or do so in precarious and undeclared occupations; the vast majority of those who are legal are employed in low value-added activities, mostly in services. The result is that around 30% of households with a foreign member are in absolute poverty and 35% in relative poverty.

- Growing poverty has affected Italian households with no or only one regular work income, particularly in the South, where, according to the Bank of Italy, the wide gap in per capita income separating it from the Centre-North would be halved if only it would align its employment rate with that of the rest of the country.