ABSTRACT
Italy has recently become an immigration country, after almost a century of emigration. The timing of this structural change, which occurred in the mid-1970s, can be explained both by the closure of several Northern European labour markets to immigrants. Following this the oil price shocks and the economic recession of the early 1970s and by the strong economic growth experienced in Italy since the early 1960s. The incoming flows of migrants started in the late 1960s, but it took a few more years of economic development for the Italian outflows to fade out. The future challenge for Italian researchers is that of diffusing scientific information in order to inform the political and media debate about unauthorized migration. It can be debated whether Italian politics were unprepared to cope with the immigration phenomenon or simply have not dealt with it responsibly, but it is hardly deniable that the institutional framework has been absolutely inadequate in managing the increasing inflows of migrants.
