Migrants, more and more people obtain Italian citizenship, increasing weight of second generations

A structural criticality, the report highlights, is 'occupational segregation': 80% of the employed born abroad are concentrated in the secondary segment of the labour market (ILO 2025 data). 26% are employed in elementary occupations, compared to 7.6% of those born in Italia; among office workers, the incidences are 13.7% and 4.7%. In managerial and highly qualified professional profiles, the share drops to 7.5% for those born abroad, against 21.5% of Italians. In 2024, new activations involving foreign workers were mainly concentrated in agriculture (44.1%), construction (35.8%), industry (24.8%), trade and repairs (15.4%) and services (15.0%), with a clear prevalence of low-skilled occupations. The 30,748 extracurricular traineeships activated show only marginal signs of change, with a differentiation between EU nationals, more present in qualified profiles, and non-EU nationals, concentrated in less qualified occupations.

This insertion model, the document highlights, limits the country's attractiveness for more educated immigrants and favours a 'negative selection' of flows. The concentration in low-productivity sectors is reflected in strong wage penalisations: in 2024 the average annual wage of non-EU workers is 30.4% lower than the overall wage (17,015 euro against 24,449), with wider gaps in permanent contracts and only partially reduced in fixed-term contracts (Inps data). Even when wages are slightly above average, as in domestic and agricultural work, the levels remain very low. In terms of median hourly wages, the gap reaches 26.3% and is more pronounced for women.This results in a high incidence of absolute poverty among foreign households: in 2024 it concerns 35.2% of foreign-only households, against 6.2% of Italian-only households; 17.9% of foreign households experience food insecurity and 40.5% of households with minors are in absolute poverty. Foreigners are also penalised in terms of economic mobility: between 2011 and 2022, only 25% have improved their income status, against 41% of naturalised citizens and 51% of Italians. Overall, underlines Fondazione ISMU ETS, the risk emerges of a condition of structural disadvantage destined to consolidate and transmit itself to the new generations.

Fondazione ISMU ETS estimates that there are approximately 930,000 pupils with non-Italian citizenship enrolled from nursery to secondary schools. The percentage incidence on the total school population has reached 11.6%, rising in twenty years from 3.5% to almost 12 non-Italian students for every 100. Of the total, 51.7% are males, the remaining 48.3% females.

The majority of pupils with non-Italian citizenship is concentrated in the northern regions, which, overall, receive more than 60% of the total (North-West 38.3%, North-East 25.7%), followed by the Centre (22.1%) and the South. Lombardy is confirmed - as always - as the first region in terms of absolute numbers (about 236,000 pupils, equal to 26% of the national total), followed by Emilia-Romagna (112,839 pupils), Veneto (94,669), Lazio (80,051) and Piedmont (78,256). At a provincial and metropolitan level, Milan maintains the record for the number of students with non-Italian citizenship (79,039), followed by Rome (63,782), Turin (39,465) and Brescia (32,747). In the last four school years, the most significant increases were recorded in Lombardy (+15 thousand foreign students) and Emilia-Romagna (+8 thousand) and, among the cities, in Rome (+4,300). If we then consider unaccompanied foreign minors (MSNA), Milan remains the first city in terms of presences (over a thousand), but also in Sicily and in particular in Catania (745) the numbers are very high, followed by Rome (685). Students with non-Italian citizenship come from almost 200 countries. About 43% are of European origin (predominantly Romania, Albania, Ukraine, Moldova), 32% are of African origin (Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Nigeria, Senegal), about 20% are of Asian origin (China, India, Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh) and 8.5% are of Latin American origin (Peru, Ecuador).