The Mediterranean model of immigration

Abstract

The countries of Southern Europe – Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain – have become in the last decades countries of immigration, while they are still areas of emigration even thug with a substant reduction of the emigration flows. The patterns of immigration in these countries have several common features. First af all immigration started in all countries in the same period (the 1970ties). Secondly they receive immigratns from many, also very distant, places. Thirdly there is a high presence of female immigrants, that is often above 59% of the total immigrant flow. Fourtly in all these countries – contray to the intraeuropean migrations of the ‘fifties and of the ‘sixties - immigrants have found occupation in the service sector, in agricolture and not so often in industry. Female employment in the services is the most important feature of this immigration: female immigrants work mostly as cleaners and in general in domestic work and now, more and more frequently, in the area of care for the elderly. Also the immigration policies in these countries are similar with closed borders and consequent illegal immigration and the practice of amnesty laws. Because of all these common characterics the article puts forward the hipothesis of the existence of a mediterranean model of immigration.