EBRD research project
“Loss of Human Capital Survey of Migrants”

Introduction

The Office of the Chief Economist of EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) is conducting a programme of studies relative to the economic impact of labour migration on transition economies. One such study will focus on Eastern European migration to Italy. The EBRD therefore entrusted the survey company CE&Co to conduct a survey of migrants in Italy in order to collect data on loss of human capital for the countries of origin and on the assimilation of human capital in the host country. The Fondazione Rodolfo Debenedetti is also collaborating to the project, providing scientific and technical assistance.
 

The survey: target and sample size

The survey consists of 1.000 interviews, face-to-face, carried out in a sample of 8 Italian cities (Alessandria, Bologna, Brescia, Lucca, Milano, Prato, Rimini and Verona) among the following segments of population:

• 250 interviews with both legal and illegal migrants from the Western Balkan Region: Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia;
• 250 interviews with migrants from eastern countries which joined the EU in recent years: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia;
• 250 interviews with migrants from other developing non-European countries
• 250 interviews within Italian households living in the same buildings or near the same buildings from which the three previous samples are drawn.

The aim of the survey is to interview both legal and illegal migrats. The interview length is of about 40 minutes. It includes a computer-assisted interview and paper questionnaire involving a short test with questions on reading, comprehension and logic skills.

The second wave

In May 2010, the questionnaire was expanded with 19 new questions to investigate on religious views, integration levels and accidents at work.

The Fondazione Rodolfo Debenedetti has coordinated the realization of 300 new interviews, with the support of the Fondazione Alma Mater and the Carlo Erminero&Co.:

• 200 to individuals already interviewed in the first wave, who were asked only the new questions;
• 100 to new individuals who were asked the complete questionnaire.

In order to be able to obtain scientifically relevant analyses of immigrants’ integration levels according to their religious views, it was necessary for the population interviewed in the second wave to be half Christian and half Muslim.

Timing

The census of sampled residential blocks has been carried out during September-October 2009. The first wave of interviews was conducted between October and November 2009, while the second wave was conducted in May 2010.

The sampling procedure

The population of reference for this research is fairly unknown, especially if illegal migrants are to be included among interviewees.  Furthermore, the number of immigrants is very small in comparison with the total number of residents in Italian cities: the foreign population in Italy is about 5% of the total, and only 16% of immigrants are of European origin, hence the population of the former two groups together - eastern Balkans and new EU members - represents only 0.8% of the total Italian population (source Istat, 2007). Our research project tries to overcome these difficulties through a sampling process divided in various steps. The sampling procedure involved: first, an extraction of primary resident units based on an “area sampling criterion”; then, a second extraction based on a proximity criterion to the primary units; finally, as an additional strategy, the so-called “snowball sampling procedure”, that may be used in the final part of the survey in order to increase the number of interviews from particular hard-to-trace segments of population (for more information please visit the following page).