Immigrant integration policies in Italy

This chapter reviews some important aspects of immigrant integration policies: first, immigrant participation to mainstream active labour market programmes as well as the existence of more targeted programmes are examined. Second, the evolution of language training supply, notably with the introduction of integration contract in 2012, is reviewed, as well as its co-ordination at the regional level. Third, the impact of successive regularisation programmes – through which a large share of migrants to Italy have passed at one time or another – is examined. The extent to which this impact is lowered by the recent economic crisis is considered. The fourth integration policy under review in this chapter is naturalisation criteria which is rather restrictive in Italy in international comparison despite recent amendment affecting native-born foreigners who have been residing continuously in Italy. Finally, the framework for anti-discrimination is evaluated.