Immigration as an opportunity: female employment, economic growth, redistribution of resources

Abstract

This work considers some positive effects of immigration from an economic and social point of view with particular reference to Italy. In the first part, using the data made available by the National Institute of Statistics and by the National Institute of Social Security, it is demonstrated that immigration favours the performance of the social security system, in that it has a positive impact on the Italian demographic trend and increases the offer of female workers. Immigration frees the local women from the tasks of family assistance, which has traditionally been allocated to them given the lack of public policies concerning the family. The increased rate of female participation in the workforce ends up being, in turn, beneficial for the prospects of growth of the entire economic system. In the second part, the reflection on immigration is developed with specific reference to elements of structural crisis of the Italian economy, keeping in mind the scenario of the global emergencies of the planet. It is argued that immigration could be a determining force of economic and social change in Western countries with a longer tradition of industrialization and an structural element in the construction of the new order of cooperation and coordination at a world level. The adoption of a widely shared “planetary project” is here considered as the only possibility for the peaceful distribution of conditions of prosperity which only relatively very few have enjoyed up to now.