From slaves to key workers? How the Covid-19 pandemic questions the sustainability of the Italian model of migrants’ integration

The widening of inequalities is among the main consequences of the crises induced by Covid-19: since they often suffer from a condition of structural disadvantage, migrants constitute an interesting case to analyse the pandemic’s impact. Starting from these premises, this article focuses on the Italian experience. Section 1 provides an overview of the pandemic consequences on migrants, as described by the reports provided by international bodies and civil society organizations. Section 2 focuses on migrants’ occupational and economic condition in Italy before the outbreak of the pandemic and illustrates how the working inclusion model has been generating an ethno-stratification of the society. What is more, this model is paradoxically fed and «legitimized» by the pro-migrants’ discourse, which – in an attempt to reassure public opinion – insists on the advantage of disposing a hyper-adaptable workforce. Section 3 illustrates the impact of the health crises and focuses the attention on two sectors – domestic work and agriculture – which are strategic for the daily survival of the society and rely on a significant presence of foreign workers. The concluding section underlines that immigration, since it «intercepts» the decline of the main cornerstones on which European democracies have been founded, permits to grasp some of the main challenges for social cohesion, economic competitiveness, and sustainability in the post-pandemic scenario. Among them, it is worth mentioning the need to metabolize Italy’s transformation into a multi-ethnic society and to overcome the characters of the migrants’ inclusion model.