Migration and Labor Market: Literature, Facts, and an analysis of a particular case

The growth of the migration phenomenon has resulted in the growth of literature aimed at explaining its causes and effects. On the one hand, there seems to be a bidirectional relationship between causes and effects; on the other hand, the link between migration and the labor market seems to characterize most studies on migration flows. After analyzing global trends related to the migration phenomenon, I investigated these two links, between causes and effects and between migration and the labor market. In the first case, through a review of numerous contributions by economists, I found that most of them assign the effects on migrants in destination countries a crucial role in determining the causes of subsequent migration. In the second case, through a multinomial regression analysis on data for the region of Lombardy, I analyzed the labor positioning of sub-Saharan immigrants in Lombardy in the years 2001 and 2016 as a function of individual attributes of gender and educational level and compared the results with other immigrants. I found that that the occupational status of people with sub-Saharan African citizenship compared to people from the rest of the world has changed significantly between 2001 and 2016. Sub-Saharans have become significantly more likely to be not in employment in 2016 compared to 2001. In addition, compared to 2001 in 2016 there is not a difference anymore in gender amongst the different occupational statuses of people from Sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, both in 2016 and in 2001 the occupation of Sub-Saharan citizens does make a difference in the level of education one has, with people who have registered employment being significantly more likely to have higher levels of educational achievements.