The Ethnic Penalty in the Italian Labour Market: A Comparison between the Centre-North and South

Analysis of the institutional characteristics and structure of host societies and the labour market has become increasingly important to explain the processes of immigrant integration. From this viewpoint, Italy would appear an optimal case study. Economic and employment imbalances between the Centre-North and the South, have represented the background in which the immigrant labour market integration in terms of employment opportunities, distribution by sector, professions and working conditions, have historically differed at a territorial level. This article contributes to the debate analysing territorial disparities in terms of ethnic penalty, looking at the employment performances of immigrants compared to natives: an attempt to verify if and to what extent, within the same institutional context, the differentiation of the structure and the informal regulation of the labour market leads to significantly different mechanisms of penalty. Results show that also from this viewpoint, labour market integration of immigrants in the two macro-areas seems characterized by significant differences, which may be summarised in the considerable trade-off between employment entry chances and job quality. A finding that confirms the results of recent comparative analyses between old and new European receiving countries and offers important insights to define a South European model of immigrant employment integration.