Ethnic segregation of foreign immigrants in Milan

Stefania Rimoldi, Università degli Studi di Milano - Bicocca
Laura Terzera, Università degli Studi di Milano - Bicocca

According to population register, foreign immigrants resident in Milan numbered 200,000 on the 1st of January 2010. Their share of total population has more than tripled In less than 20 years exceeding 15%. During the last five years their amount has increased at the average annual rate of 53 per 1,000 although it's worth underlining that the rate is slowly declining. The composition of foreign population by country of origin comes out as the result of migratory chains and family reunifications phenomena subsequent to the rooting process on the territory experienced by the communities on one hand, and of the synthesis between job skills supply (at least assumed as such) and demand on the other hand. The first five nationalities with the highest figures, Philippines, Egypt, China, Peru and Ecuador total over 51% of foreign population. The most discriminating demographic feature turns out to be gender: even though males and females are equally represented in the total foreign population, the communities are extremely gender selected. Gender selection (mainly triggered by job opportunities) has also obvious consequences on family formation and settling behavior in urban neighborhoods. This study aims to show how each community tend to distribute over the 180 sub-areas (functional areas) which compose the municipality of Milan, in order to detect its level of segregation and possibly to explain it in the light of the characteristics of their presence (job skills, duration of the presence, etc.). The issue of segregation, towards the Italians, will be handled taking into account its 5 dimensions of disparity, exposure, concentration, centralization and clustering, testing the ability of different indexes to measure it at this level of geographical disaggregation. Geo-referenced data from population registers will be considered, as well as data derived from quantitative and qualitative surveys on immigrants living in the Milanese province.