The social inclusion of immigrants in the United Kingdom and Italy. Different but converging trajectories?

Existing research from migration studies and comparative social policy has highlighted the need to develop better understandings of immigrants’ social rights and their inclusion/exclusion from welfare systems. This chapter contributes to this literature by exploring to what extent the UK and Italy, two countries very different in terms of immigration histories, management of integration and structure of welfare state, have come to converge in the last 15 years in relation to the social inclusion of (documented) immigrants. It is proposed that to fully understand the social rights of immigrants, we need to consider the intersection of the multilevel policies which regulate immigrants’ social rights (welfare, immigration and immigrant policies) with the multilevel systems of government and governance (national, regional and local, both statutory and non-statutory actors) that implement these policies and mediate access to social services. Such an analysis of the trajectories of the UK and Italy is conducted by paying attention to their ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ divisions of labour within the state in respect of immigration and immigrant policies and services, and the role of non-governmental organisations in complementing or substituting for retrenching public provision in this area. It is argued that there are important similarities between the two countries in relation to: i) national governments concerning themselves largely with immigration policies (quotas and restrictions on newcomers’ social rights) while transferring responsibility (but not resources) for immigrant integration to local governments; ii) third sector actors are ‘compensating’ for insufficient public provision at the local level while facing a lack of funding and institutional support. This results in a growing territorial differentiation in services for the social inclusion of immigrants.