Integration Strategies and Policies in Italy

At the beginning of the 1970s immigration passed almost unnoticed in Italy. Its first migration policies were adopted only in the 1980s and from the end of the Twentieth century onwards immigration issues have been brought to the political arena, developing a debate on how immigration could have benefited the Italian economy and on the possibility or impossibility of the integration of migrants within the Italian society. The focus on immigration from a merely juridical or economic perspective has greatly influenced several researches which have privileged disadvantaged migrants as their object of analysis in a sheer perspective of defending human rights. This approach is highly necessary and useful, but it does not cover all aspects of migrant integration. In particular, it does not take into consideration a great number of skilled immigrants who live in the Peninsula. This leading and innovative text aims to fill a gap in the research landscape by tackling immigrant integration from a peculiar point of view and through a particular perspective: that of the intellectual or highly skilled migrant women in Italy.