Being a woman and a foreigner in Italy is a source of increased vulnerability that presents a double disadvantage with clear reflections in the job market, according to findings presented in the 2021 IDOS Statistical Immigration Dossier.

This occurred with the onset of the pandemic and the socio-economic crisis that followed, in a general framework in which the gaps between Italians and migrants often increased, the report shows.

While the pandemic produced an unusually high decline in employment in 2020 (-456,000, -2.0%), it was mainly among foreigners (-159,000, -6.4%).

Among them, women were the most penalized (-109,000, -10.0%), accounting for nearly one-fourth of the overall decline in jobs (24%).

Jobs for foreign female workers decreased to a greater extent than those for both male migrants (-10.0% compared to -3.5%) and Italian women (-1.6%), who lost jobs at a rate nearly consistent with their male counterparts (-1.3%).

The employment rate for foreign women fell by 4.9%, more than double the 2.2% drop for foreign men and eight times more than that of Italian women (-0.6%, in line with that of Italian men).

Increase in underemployed women

The report also showed a sharp increase in underemployed women, those working less than they would like.

In 2020, 14% of foreign women reported being underemployed, compared to 8.1% in 2019 and 9.1% of Italian women. The percentage of over-educated foreign women also remained high, with 42.3% of foreign female workers possessing a higher skill level than required for their job.

This is significantly higher than both Italian women (24.8%) and male migrants (27.7%). The marked vulnerability of female migrant employment is explained in part by their clear funneling into poorly protected jobs where they are particularly exposed to precariousness and restrictions, as well as the risk of Covid infection.

Over half of foreign women workers occupy just three professions: domestic workers, caregivers, and cleaning staff for offices and businesses (compared to 13 professions for foreign men and 20 for Italian women).

A full 39.7% of foreign women are employed in domestic or home care services.

Access to vaccine was delayed

The marked concentration in domestic work has severely limited foreign women workers' ability to benefit from a firing freeze and access to unemployment benefits.

According to data from Italian statistics institute INPS, women made up only 10.5% of non-EU citizens receiving ordinary unemployment benefits in 2020 and 24.3% of extraordinary benefits.

Family assistants and the many female workers in the socio-health system paid a high price in terms of health and exposure to infection from COVID-19. Among the infections reported by foreign workers (14.3% of the total in 2020), eight in 10 were women.

Access to the vaccine was also delayed compared to other "at-risk" categories. Access to priority vaccination was extended only in the March 2021 vaccination plan to family assistants in charge of care, and only for people with severe disabilities, excluding all others (assistants, however, to "fragile" people, as well as domestic workers and babysitters).

Meanwhile, there has been no shortage of cases of those who got vaccinated during brief visits to their country of origin. This is problematic for many workers from Eastern European countries who were vaccinated with Sputnik, which is not considered valid for a Green Pass in Italy.