An unstable equilibrium: the Italian immigrants' inclusion model facing the pandemic crisis test.

The article examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Italian immigrants' inclusion model in the labor market, characterized as a "low unemployment, bad jobs" equilibrium where immigrants have relatively high employment rates but are concentrated in unstable, low-quality jobs. Using data from the 2019 and 2020 Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) Labor Force Survey, the study finds that the pandemic accelerated the erosion of immigrants' relative employment advantage compared to natives, particularly affecting immigrant women and those in Southern Italy. This decline is primarily attributed to increased barriers in (re)entering the labor market rather than higher job loss rates, with immigrant women showing signs of self-selection into inactivity possibly due to work-family balance challenges. Additionally, immigrants' segregation in low-skilled jobs persisted or slightly worsened, indicating that the structural factors historically facilitating immigrant labor activation may now contribute to instability in their employment inclusion.