Foreign Immigration and Demographic Conditions: a Regional Case Study

Within Italy’s regional pattern the case study of Lombardy can be considered an interesting example of a territorial system characterised by a migration process that has reached the mature stage either with an increased inflow of family members of earlier migrants or a large addition of children and young people enrolled in the educational structure. Immigrants from LDC’s largely outnumber (in 2004: 90 per cent of sojourn permits) those arriving from the traditional MDC’s frame of reference, with values and trends that are nevertheless almost the same as those registered in other Italian regions taken as a whole. An analysis, conducted in a first stage of this research (Birindelli, Farina, Rimoldi, 2004), highlighted the relationship between the territorial distribution of foreigners in Lombardy and the economic space they occupy, choosing as reference unit the Local Labour Systems, that is «the place where community relationships (society) and business (economy) are locally bounded» (Sforzi, 1999). In this second stage, we aim to take into account the demographic trends taking place in the LLS since 1971 and to match the geography of foreign presence with that of the present demographic and economic structure. In order to achieve the objectives of this study data for the demographic characteristics and dynamics of foreign resident population in each LLS are derived from the Population Register. Meanwhile, data regarding the economic structure of each LLS are derived from the 2001 Census of Industries and Services. The first objective of this study will be carried out in particular by means of the “wind star” technique (Ascolani, 1988); that is an adaptation of the so-called “shift and share” analysis to the case of population development (this analysis is usually employed in the study of differences in the regional development of industrial employment). We consider the two components of population growth, that are the natural increase and the migration balance (obtained by residual method). The mean annual rates of both estimated net migration and natural increase are the coordinates of a point (for each of 57 SSL) plotted in a scatter graph where the Cartesian axes refer to the migration balance (abscissa) and to the natural increase (ordinate) respectively. In this system we can also create two halves in each quadrant, tracing a bisector with congruent angles: points above and below the bisector crossing the second and fourth quadrant oppose case of population increase with case of population decrease while the bisector crossing the other two quadrants allows to mark the counteraction of natural increase vs. net migration. As the compass rose indicates the directions of the winds so the adopted graphical device depicts the “ideal trajectory” of demographic process. Throw anticlockwise motion the starting favourable condition (1st quadrant: either net migration or natural increase are positive) can go from bad (2nd quadrant: positive natural balance, negative net migration) to worse (3rd quadrant: both of the components have a negative sign); a gleam of improvement appears with the transition to the right bottom area (4th quadrant: positive net migration vs. natural decrease). Every LLS is typified through the comparison of the trajectories during the three decade so as to trace the background for the subsequent analysis. With reference to the second objective an adequate synthesis of the indicators will be obtained with a factor analysis (using the principal components method for the extraction of factors); a cluster analysis based on the factors extracted will lead to the identification of homogeneous clusters of LLS with respect both to the demographic characteristics (namely, the relative presence of one or more country of origin, investigated by means of common geo-statistical tools) of the foreign resident population and to the economic structure of the territory. 1) To detect any general tendency among the LLS to cluster together in particular areas of the region, classified according to either previous demographic trends or the present socio-economic characteristics; 2) to identify any form of selection by the nationalities based on economic conditions of the area, 3) to discover the underlying relationships between the economic condition and the integration process of each nationality of origin.