Foreign immigration in Southern European receiving countries: New evidence from

national data sources

Foreign population in Southern European host countries:

Italy

Spain

Greece

Portugal

What are the purposes of this paper?

1. To highlight some new evidence on the recent evolution of foreign population.

2. A strong focus of this paper is on the changes in the geographical origins of recent immigrants.

3. The changes in the European migration scenario due to migrants leaving Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

The approach: is based on the comparison and integration of several data sources, used to draw the quantitative evolution of the stock of foreigners.

From national data sources to the

measurement of the stock of foreigners

In this section, the evolution of the foreign population in

Southern European host countries from the beginning of the

1990s is reconstructed. The most recent trends are

considered with particular attention. Since the different

national data sources capture diverse subsets of the foreign

population and are characterized by a variable quality of

registrations, our approach strives to draw a picture as

comprehensive as possible by comparing and integrating

the available information.

Italy

To trace the evolution of the

foreign population in Italy, three main

sources of data are available

PERMITS TO STAY

POPULATION REGISTER (anagrafe)

CENSUSES

Foreign population in Italy

Spain

1991 and 2001 CENSUS

PERMITS TO STAY (residentes, file elaborated by Ministry

of the Interior)

POPULATION REGISTER (Padron

Municipal)

Also for the Spain there are three main sources that enable to draw the evolution of foreigners

Foreign population in Spain

Portugal

PERMIT TO STAY(autorizacao de residencia – AR)

PERMANENCE PERMIT

(autorizacao de permanencia – AP)

In addition could be used an other variable:RENEWALS (AR + AP)

CENSUS

Also for this country the dimensions of

foreign population can be obtained through different variables

Foreign population in Portugal

Greece

Three main stock data are avilable

Permits to stay

(Ministry of Interior)

Permits to stay

(cumulative)

Census

Foreign population in Greece

The role of Southern Europe in the European migration scenario

New countries of origin: from South-North to East-West migration [1]. Italy

According to Table 8.2 there was a considerable increase in the foreign population in Italy among 2001-2006). It has concerned only migrants coming from developing countries and from Central and Eastern Europe. The increase in Africans has (most imigrants in Italy are North Africans) been lower, in fact for example Moroccans, although increasing, have lost their over ten years of supremacy, being outnumbered by Albanians and Romanians. The Filipino community, one of the first group in Italy, has been outnumbered by the Chinese community as well. Migration from the Indian subcontinent has also grown - Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Among Latin Americans (Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Ecuador.

New countries of origin: from South-North to East-West migration [2]. Spain

As shown in the Table 8.3 foreigners in Spain are more Latin Americans but also Eastern Europeans. In Spain international migration flows have also intensified over the past fifteen years. The number of foreign who held a permit to stay at the beginning of 2001 has tripled in five years.During the second half of the 1990s the increase in legal foreigners was mostly due to inflows of Moroccans and Northern Africans. Latin America has suddenly become the most important sending region for Spain (an increase of 185000 about one million; Ecuadorians, Colombians, Argentinean, Peruvian and Bolivian. However the most important change in the Spanish migration scenario is the beginning and strengthening of migratory flows from CEE (Central and Eastern Europe.

New countries of origin: from South-North to East-West migration [3]. Portugal

The table above show the inflow’s area of immigration in Portugal. Almost half of the regular immigrants were citizens of Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP) with Capo Verdeans being the most sizeable group and other large communities coming from Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Sao Tomé and Principe. Among Latin Americans, Brazilian have the higher number. In 2000 the Portuguese migration scenario has shifted in migrant origins with a significant inflow of Eastern Europeans. The clear predominance of Ukrainians among the new temporary workers – followed by Moldavians, Romanians and Russian.

New countries of origin: from South-North to East-West migration [4]. Greece

Compared with the other Southern European countries, in term of migration flow Greece has experienced in advance the consequences of the collapse of regimes in Central and Eastern Europe. The dominance of Central and Eastern Europeans in the Greek immigration scenario was confirmed by the 2001 censuses. Besides an overwhelming majority of Albanians, the presence of Bulgarians, Georgians, Romanians and Ukrainians was recorded.

Conclusions

In the last years the study of international migrations in

Southern Europe has significantly improved. The

substantial success of the 2000 round censuses in

capturing foreign populations, the availability of new

sources able to quantify the whole universe of

foreigners, the issue of extensive datasets on

regularisation procedures, have all contributed to a

better understanding of the migratory phenomena in

these countries. Nevertheless, significant limits still

remain, and further efforts to fill in some serious gaps in

information are needed.