A Portrait of Immigrant Children's Housing Experiences in Italy

In this paper, we describe the housing arrangements of immigrant children aged 11-14, comparing their situation to that of Italian children. Data come from the ITAGEN2, a statistically representative survey of students aged 11-14, living in 44 Italian provinces during the 2005-06 school year (10,537 Italians and 6,368 immigrants). Parents of Italian children are often able to combine three housing objectives: homeownership, spaciousness, and proximity to relatives. The considerable rise in the price of real estate over the last decade has meant that many immigrant families have been drawn into a vicious cycle: the increasing lack of financial means has made purchasing a large home impossible for many, forcing families to rent or buy a little house far from their close relatives. This distancing in turn affects their economic situation, in that the possibility of receiving informal aid (i.e. child care, etc.) is reduced. A lack of suitable housing policies exacerbates the difficulty of breaking this pattern.