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Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

ISSN: 1369-183X (Print) 1469-9451 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjms20

Uneven Paths: Latin American Women FacingItalian Family Reunification Policies

Paola Bonizzoni

To cite this article: Paola Bonizzoni (2015) Uneven Paths: Latin American Women Facing ItalianFamily Reunification Policies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 41:12, 2001-2020, DOI:10.1080/1369183X.2015.1037257

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2015.1037257

Published online: 08 May 2015.

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Uneven Paths: Latin American WomenFacing Italian Family Reunification PoliciesPaola Bonizzoni

The paper provides a qualitative exploration of the impact of family migration policieson Latin American migrants in Italy. As the data collected reveals, the right to familylife is differently accessed and regulated along lines of nationality/ethnicity, gender andclass, reflected in more or less rigidly constrained formal and informal reunificationpathways, which differently affect gender, intergenerational and care relationships inthe family. While Italy, compared to other European countries, still regulates the matterin a relatively generous way, the increasing restrictions, matched with widespreadinformality in labour and housing markets, make access to this fundamental humanright highly uneven and stratified.

Keywords: Family Migration Policies; Female Migration; Latin American Migration

1. Introduction

Family migration has become one of the most intensely politicised issues within thesphere of immigration and integration policy (Kofman et al. 2011) as it has come toprovide one of the main gateways through which migrants can legally enter and settlein Europe (OECD 2011). An established right to family reunification limits States’power to control numbers and composition of migratory inflows and its impact onwelfare states is often feared (Bonjour and Kraler 2014; Kraler 2014). The growingrelevance in public debate of ‘culturally problematic’ family practices has, moreover,triggered controls on the private life of individuals and has justified restrictivepractices with the aim of protecting women and children (Eggebø 2013; Grillo 2008;Pascouau and Labayle 2011; Ruffer 2011; Schmidt 2011; Strik, de Hart, and Nissen2013; Urbanek 2012).

Research, however, has still to fully understand the impact of these increasinglyrestrictive constraints on the family life of both migrants and citizens and thestrategies families may devise to overcome, challenge and bypass them.

Paola Bonizzoni, Lecturer in Sociology, Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan, Milan,Italy. Correspondence to: Paola Bonizzoni, Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali e Politiche, Università degli Studi diMilano, Via Conservatorio 7, 20122, Milano, Italia. E-mail: paola.bonizzoni@unimi.it; paola.bonizzoni@gmail.com

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2015Vol. 41, No. 12, 2001–2020, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2015.1037257

© 2015 Taylor & Francis

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The aim of this paper is to contribute to the literature emerging in the field,focusing on the experience of Latin American female migrant workers in Italy. Thepaper aims to show that family reunification is a gendered process, shaped by specificforms of ‘subaltern integration’ of migrant women in the Italian labour market(Ambrosini 2001), leading to a specific set of opportunities and constraints. As thedata collected reveals, the right to family life is differently accessed and regulatedalong lines of nationality/ethnicity, gender and class, reflected in more or less rigidlyconstrained formal and informal reunification pathways, which differently affectgender, intergenerational and care relationships in the family. While Italy, comparedto other European countries, still regulates the matter in a relatively generous way, theincreasing restrictions, matched with widespread informality in labour and housingmarkets, make access to this fundamental human right highly uneven and stratified.

2. The Impact of Family Migration Policies on Immigrant Family Life

Family migration policies define who, if determined conditions are met, can sponsorthe entry and settlement right of specific relatives in a defined territory. As such, theybind the geographical mobility of families contributing to set the conditions underwhich more or less secure forms of membership can be achieved, enjoyed andmaintained (Block 2014; Bosniak 2000; Calavita 2005; Goldring, Berinstein, andBernhard 2009; Morris 2002). Gaining membership on the grounds of familyrelationships entails coming to terms with a complex mechanism of selection andcontrol. Family migration policies define which ties are deemed worthy and which arenot. They determine a whole set of integration proof that sponsors and/or reunitedrelatives are expected to provide in order to prove that they are neither a burden forwelfare states nor threats to the ‘moral order’ of the nation (van Walsum 2008).Scholars have argued that family migration policies are, therefore, imbued withpervasive culturally and class-based understandings of how families should work associal institutions (Strasser et al. 2009), determining a profound impact on theeveryday family life of migrants.

This impact can be, however, extremely diversified.Firstly, because family migration is regulated differently according to the

nationality and the status of the sponsor (Schweitzer 2014; Strik, de Hart, and Nissen2013). More favourable conditions can be applied—for different reasons and indifferent ways across Europe—to refugees, skilled migrants or migrants coming fromspecific countries. The rights of European citizens are, instead, more generouslydisciplined at a European level and several studies have shown how European Union(EU) mobility rights can be strategically used to bypass restrictive national laws(Rytter 2012; Wagner 2014).

Lydia Morris calls ‘civic stratification’ the ‘hierarchy of stratified rights resultingfrom processes of exclusion and inclusion which classifies and sorts out migrants andthe realisation of rights formally associated with these locations’ (2002, 7). Civicstratification leads, in this respect, to different family reunification regimes which, on

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the one hand, grant more or less favourable conditions to sponsors according to theirnationality/status and, on the other hand, assign more or less stable and rights-richstatuses to reunited relatives. Scholars have argued that, regulating family migration,immigration policies produce new forms of inequality while at the same timereinforcing pre-existing social cleavages, in terms of ethnicity, gender and class(Kraler 2010).

For instance, income requirements can indirectly discriminate among migrantsaccording to their positions in local labour and housing markets (Leerkes and Kulu-Glasgow 2011; Schweitzer 2014), as they are often segregated into ethnicized andgendered employment niches. Family structures (i.e. number and age of the children;rate of female-headed households) and the number of income providers (as theoutcome of different gendered and generational contracts) influence the balance ofburdens and resources in the household, making meeting maintenance requirementsmore or less problematic.

How migrants ‘do family’ locally and transnationally, however, varies profoundlyaccording to culturally prescribed ways of performing family roles and responsibil-ities, reflected in diversified local and transnational family formation and reunifica-tion patterns and in different modes of circulation and settlement according togender and generation (Åkesson, Carling, and Drotbohm 2012; Baldassar and Merla2013; Mazzucato and Schans 2011).

While family migration policies select and ‘mould’ (Wray 2009) immigrantfamilies, immigrants also exercise choice in respect to if, how and when to reunite,abroad or in the country of origin (Baizán, Beauchemin, and González-Ferrer 2014).A range of qualitative and ethnographic studies have shown, in this respect, migrant’sagency in response to the opportunity structure posed by immigration policies(Bloch, Sigona, and Zetter 2011; Coutin 2003; Gleeson and Gonzales 2012; Goldringand Landolt 2011; Menjivar 2006), revealing how the latter are concretely ‘made by’ awider set of social institutions allowing several actors (from employers, to NGOs, tomigrants themselves) to enact creative ways to overcome, challenge and bypass them.While legal restrictions are tangible structural forces that constrain migrants’behaviour, social actors can also devise strategies and intervene to achieve theirown plans (Anderson and Ruhs 2010; Hellgren 2012) while strategies clearly varyaccording to the resources available (Engbersen, Van San, and Leerkes 2006).

An emerging corpus of studies has recently begun to explore how migrants areaffected by—and actively respond to—family migration policies (Bertolani, Rinaldini,and Tognetti Bordogna 2013; Bonizzoni 2012a, 2012b; Eggebø 2013; Fresnoza-Flot2014; Baizán, Beauchemin, and González-Ferrer 2014; Rytter 2012; Schmidt 2011;Strasser et al. 2009; Wagner 2014). Most research has been carried out in NorthernEurope and has privileged a focus on marriage and couple relationships, makingshifting the attention to Southern Europe timely. As the discussion of the Italian casewill show, family migration has grown considerably over the last decade1 and policieshave swayed towards growing restrictions. Moreover, the reunification of couples,children and elderly parents entails different kinds of considerations and constraints,

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to which research has still devoted limited attention and which the present articleaims to explore.

3. Italian Family Migration Policies: Swaying towards Growing Restriction

Family migration has been the focus of repeated legislative intervention from1986—when the first law (n°943/1986) regulating the matter was issued—onwards.Legislation is characterised by a repeated swaying between restriction and relaxation,revealing its strategic and symbolic relevance to the several governments engaged indisciplining it.

Today, all Third-country Nationals entitled to a stay permit valid for at least 1 yearcan enjoy the right to family reunification.2

Sponsors can reunite the spouse (who, as Legislative decree n°160/2008 specifiedshould be at least 18 years of age) old and minor unmarried children.3 Children overthe age of 18 can only be admitted under specific circumstances: under the Turco-Napolitano Law (1998) that of being declared ‘unable to work’; successively limited tohealth conditions that (from the Legislative Decree n°160/2008 onwards) must bejustified on the grounds of total and permanent invalidity.4

The reunification of other dependent relatives has been a repeatedly contestedissue. The Turco-Napolitano law (1998) adopted the broadest definition of family inuse, since dependent parents (irrespective of age and health conditions) and alldependent relatives unable to work under the third degree of kinship were included.The Bossi-Fini Law (2002) introduced a more restrictive stance: it set the agerequirements still in force today, establishing that parents under the age of 65 couldbe reunited only if they had no other children living in their own country and thatparents over the age of 65 could be reunited only if their (eventual) other childrenliving there could not take care of them due to serious health conditions. While thesedispositions were temporarily relaxed in 2007,5 they were quickly restored by theLegislative decree n°160/2008, when the request for a private health insurance (orprivately funded registration with the National Health System) was also added forreunited elderly aged 65 or above.

Maintenance requirements have become increasingly detailed over time,6 reducingthe authorities’ discretion but also increasing the amount of proof and certificates tobe produced. Income requirements have been regulated from Decree Law n°489/1995onwards according to the amount established annually by the Social Allowance(Assegno Sociale),7 while the multipliers have been changed several times.8 From theTurco-Napolitano law onwards, not only the sponsors’, but also the income of othercohabiting family members is taken into account. More favourable conditions areapplied to refugees and to those entitled to subsidiary protection.9 Regulationsconcerning proof of adequate housing have become a serious issue of contention,due to repeated changes, contradictory rulings and abusive decisions made byMunicipalities.10

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Relatives reunited by Third-country Nationals are entitled to a stay permit forfamily reasons of the same duration as that of the sponsor. The Turco-Napolitano lawentitles them to work11 have full access to services and be registered with the NationalHealth System. Family stay permits can be converted into renewable work permits orinto long-term residency.12 The status of relatives reunited by migrants entitled tolong-term residency has, however, been a contested issue.13

Family formation/reunification timing and patterns contribute to structuring moreor less inclusive forms of membership even for different members of the same family:this is especially evident in the case of children. Children born abroad, on turning 18,should convert their family stay permit into a work, study (or, eventually, health-care)permit or into a long-term residency: a recent Directive of the Ministry of theInterior14 has, however, established that a family stay permit can also be renewed.15

When parents obtain long-term residency or get naturalised, this more favourablestatus cannot be extended to their adult children.16 Those born in the country can,instead, ask for Italian citizenship at the age of 18 under especially favourableconditions (having only to prove that they have been living uninterruptedly in thecountry).

Citizenship also matters. The family reunification rights of national citizens areequalised to those of EU citizens and, under specific circumstances, can even be morefavourable. The definition of the family is broader17 and integration requirements lessstrict, since income requirements are more loosely defined18 and housing require-ments absent. Relatives of EU citizens receive a 5-year stay permit granting full socialrights, which can be converted into a long-term residence card. Italian citizens arefurther protected by a set of more favourable provisions. Cohabiting relatives up tothe second degree of kinship19 to Italian citizens being issued a (renewable) 2-yearstay permit for family reasons cannot be expelled.20 The natural parent of aminor Italian citizen is also protected from expulsion.21 The growing numbers ofbi-national marriages (and/or children born to these couples) in a country wheremarriage—despite recent restrictions22—still represents the easiest and fastest route tonaturalise, have, in this respect, made the rights accorded to Italian/Europeancitizens23 increasingly relevant also for Third-country Nationals.

4. Methods

This paper is based on in-depth qualitative interviews with Latin American migrantsand observations collected over the course of a 3-year participatory observation in aMilan NGO providing legal assistance to migrants.

Interviewees come from Ecuador (18), Peru (11), Bolivia (3), Colombia (1),Salvador (1) and the Dominican Republic (2). Their length of stay in Italy varies froma minimum of 2 years to a maximum of 19 years. All of them had experiencedundocumented status and two of them were still undocumented at the time of theinterview. Most of them (28) regularised through amnesties while six throughmarriage or childbirth. The time needed to regularise was extremely varied: from a

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minimum of 1 year to a maximum of 12 years. Most regularised women were long-term residents, three had acquired Italian citizenship through marriage, 10 were stillon temporary stay permits for work (8) or family reasons (2).

Except for an unemployed woman and two interviewees on maternity leave, all ofthem were working: the large majority (21) worked for Italian families, as hourly paidhousemaids, baby-sitters and elderly care workers; three were trained care workers inhospitals and nursing homes; two were employed in cleaning firms; the remainingfive were factory workers (2), a chambermaid, a janitor and a woman employed in acall centre. Nearly all of them had done live-in domestic work in the past.

Sixteen women were married/partnered and 20 single. The high number of female-headed, matri-focal families is frequently observed in Latin America (Chant 1985;Therborn 2004) and among Latin American immigrant communities in Milan.24 Tencouples were formed in the home country and later reunited in Italy: in six cases,women were the first to leave in the family, in two cases, the couple left together andin two cases the husbands left first. Six couples were, instead, formed in Italy, three ofthem with Italian men: rates of intermarriage are especially high among LatinAmerican women, as shown by data provided by the Municipality of Milan25 and thishas profound implications in terms of family reunification pathways, as will be shownin the paper.

All the women had at least one child born in the country of origin, while six ofthem also had children born in Italy: three of them are Italian citizens. Sponsoringlegal family reunification has always been a costly and lengthy process, requiringfrom a minimum of 3 years to a maximum of 12 years. Five families still had childrenliving in their country of origin, and 10 families reunited them abroad in a piecemealfashion. Spouses and parents were almost always (except for one case) reunitedinformally, rather than through formal reunification pathways; this, however, alsohappened to 16 children (most of whom were adult children).

Women were recruited though schools, churches, local NGOs and snowball:interviewees explored in detail their family migration histories: when and why theyleft, if they had any relatives in Italy, their ‘status careers’ (regularisation, etc.) andemployment histories, as well as family formation and reunification experiences.They were all carried out, recorded, transcribed and analysed by the Author.

5. Meeting Income Requirements: Poor Salaries and Informality in a SegregatedLabour Market

The women often faced serious difficulties in meeting income requirements. In thisrespect, female migrant workers—especially those in female-headed households—areespecially disadvantaged: compared to men, they are more strongly segregated26 inspecific niches of the economy which are not just characterised by lower salaries,27

but also by greater informality28:

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I pay 700 euro for the rent and I earn 900 euro a month. How can I maintain 2 childrenhere and one there? To earn 1.000 euro a month I have to work several hours overtime,skipping nearly all my days-off.For how many hours a month?Nearly 150 hours. (Estrella, Dominican)

Why have you waited so long to reunite your second daughter?Because I was not earning enough. I tell you, I’ve been surviving for years with 700 euroa month, considering that I had to send back home 300, 400 dollars every month…(Mercedes, Peruvian)

As the words of these interviewees both reveal, women are often caught between localand transnational care responsibilities, having to save money to rent a house in Italy,while still providing for their relatives back home. This process could take years andwas often realised progressively, often taking one child at a time, also thanks to thehelp provided by older children, as will be discussed in more depth in paragraph n°9.

Due to widespread grey or black forms of employment, for some women the mainproblem was certifying—rather than merely collecting—a certain income. Paula (asfrequently happens to domestic workers) is legally hired for 25 hours a week (thelowest number of hours employers need to take advantage of a more convenienttaxation regime) but is actually working much more. Since her income cannot bewholly certified, she is forced to look for other employers willing to legally hire herfor the number of hours needed to reach the income level set by the Law:

To apply you have to earn a certain income so I have to find another job to get themoney they ask me for […] When I got my papers I started working regularly but youknow that even when you work 8–10 hours they are not going to declare everything…(Paula, Ecuadorean)

To overcome these obstacles women often looked for someone willing to help themby establishing fake or ‘quasi-legal’ work contracts (Leerkes and Kulu-Glasgow 2011).This practice is widespread in the country and can give rise to very lucrative andorganised businesses, especially when mass regularisations are coming up. However,women did not go looking for unknown intermediaries in the costly and risky blackmarket: instead, they relied on Italian families they knew well and/or ex-employers:

One of my friends, an Italian woman did this favour to me.And … for how many hours did your friend hire you?For 20 hours. (Katherine, Peruvian)

This was for instance the case of Katherine: her ‘friend’ is one of her ex-employers,who hired her ‘on paper’ for 20 hours a week. Katherine could, in this way,complement her income reaching the level set by the law even through this impliedher paying all the taxes the work contract entailed.

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6. Overcoming Housing Controls through Communal Sharing: StrategicHospitality

Research has minimised the obstacles that housing requirements represent for thosewilling to reunify with their families (Strik, de Hart, and Nissen 2013). In Milan,however, it proved to be a relevant issue, due to the high rates of informality (lack ofa registered contract) or semi-legality (such as when migrants live in a houseregistered in another person’s name), bad quality of housing (when electricity orsanitation systems are old and inadequate), limited space, high prices anddiscrimination experienced by immigrants (Arbaci 2008). Several women lived inhouses too small to host all their relatives. Moreover, property owners often provedreticent to being involved in issues concerning housing controls by public authorities,refusing to take any kind of responsibility by signing formal declarations ofhospitality to be shown to Immigration Offices, as the words of Karen’s words attest:

The property owner refused to sign the authorization and he did not allow us to bringour child. We have talked with the housing agent but he told us that the owner is a veryold man who had refused to sign the paper… (Karen, Peruvian)

When lacking alternatives, and pressed by the urge of reuniting their children,women like Mercedes avoided registering her first reunited daughter at her address atthe Municipality Office in order to still have space available for reuniting her son29:

She [the daughter reunited two years before] hasn’t been registered until now because ifI did I could not reunite my third son, do you understand? Because they say this houseis adequate just for two people. She asked me to be registered here, but I told her that Icould not do it, because I have to bring him here before he turns eighteen. (Mercedes,Peruvian)

This allowed her to bypass housing requirements, but her unregistered daughterexperienced a semi-legal status (Kubal 2013; Rytter 2012) which could createproblems over time. In Italy, registered resident status is, in fact, crucial for obtainingfull entitlement to social rights (from access to libraries to social assistance) ormoving to more favourable statuses (in terms, for instance, of getting naturalised30).

Most women, however, were able to bypass this set of constraints relying on theirnetworks, looking for trustworthy people who had ‘free’ space available in theirhomes to host or—more frequently—just to formally register their relatives ‘onpaper’:

My older sister had a big house and it was thanks to her that I could bring my daughter.Otherwise, it would have been a problem because my landlord has always refused toregister my contract. (Margareta, Ecuadorean)

While relatives or close friends were oftenmentioned, these forms of ‘communal sharing’(Engbersen, Van San, and Leerkes 2006) often involved their Italian (ex) employers. Inthis respect, the ambiguous maternalism characterising the employer–employee

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relationship in domestic work (Rollins 1987) may lead to extremely ambivalentoutcomes.

7. Ambivalent Maternalism: The Role of Employers

On the one hand, women like Isabel had to quit their jobs due to employers’ refusalto let them move to more reconcilable live-out hourly paid arrangements when familyreunification started being planned (Bonizzoni 2014):

I told her that I wanted to move to a live-out arrangement because I wanted to bring mydaughters … but she decided to fire me because she wanted a girl to work live-in.(Isabel, Ecuadorean)

On the other hand, women like Andrea, after having shared their painful historiesof family separation with employers, were able to obtain crucial forms of supportfrom them:

When she [the lady she was working for] had her baby she told me: ‘I don't know howyou can remain separated from your children. I don't know. You have to bring themimmediately!’ And I was saying to her … Well, how am I supposed to do that? Withoutdocuments, without a home? And she told me: ‘I'll help you’. (Andrea, Ecuadorean)

The family she worked for promised to apply for the next amnesty and, after havingdone so, when Andrea applied for family reunification, let her register her daughter intheir house ‘on paper’, even if she was no longer working for them.

The words of Angela and Kimberly also well exemplify the kinds of dynamics,emotions and reciprocal calculations that lead several employers to give—anddomestic workers to obtain—crucial help in reuniting their families:

We are living with a lady and his son. I used to clean her son’s house and since he knewI had problems with housing he signed a paper saying that we were going to live at theirplace. He offered us hospitality saying ‘You are in need and so is my mother …’ Youknow, he’s alone, he has no family … and he feels good with us because we’re like afamily to him. This is why we are here, to keep him some company but … yes,sometimes when we go away for our holidays he’s sad. And I’m sorry for him, but I’mnot going to spend all my life here. (Diana, Ecuadorean)

I’ve been working three years with a family I was really getting along with well and theyalso loved me very much. They knew I had a baby and once they asked me ‘Why don’tyou bring her with you?’ I had such a big room … Therefore, I brought my daughter. Atthe beginning I was a bit worried. You know, I thought that she might think that I wasnot taking care of her father anymore because of my daughter. Then—too late,unfortunately—I realized that they were not those kind of people. She was happybecause her father was taken care of properly, my daughter was happy to be here … ButI thought that they could not accept it; this is why I did not ask them before. (Kimberly,Ecuadorean)

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While the help of employers cannot be taken for granted (as the workers’ familyresponsibilities can be conflictive with workers’ commitment to the job) through theexchange of hospitality (de-facto or just ‘on paper’) employers also receive valuableresources, such as loyalty, commitment, care and affection from their workers.

8. Taking Advantage of More Favourable Regimes: Relatives of Italian Citizens

Income and housing did not represent, however, a relevant obstacle for all themothers interviewed. Several women, in fact, were exempt from those requirements,since they could take advantage of the much more favourable reunification conditionsapplied to Italian citizens and their relatives. Bi-national marriages are frequentamong Latin American women in Milan and, as several interviews show, marriages(or childbirths) often represented critical turning points in their reunificationhistories, radically changing the legal framework regulating their lives. Emblematicis, for instance, the case of Mayra, an unmarried Ecuadorean woman who gave birthto an Italian daughter. After the birth of this ‘anchor baby’ (Huang 2008), all theobstacles that had kept her separated from her family for nearly 5 years disappeared:

When he legally recognized her [the daughter] I obtained my documents, we went backto Ecuador and came back with my children. We also managed to obtain a stay permitfor my mother and I could obtain it for my sister as well, because she’s [the daughter]an Italian citizen. (Mayra, Ecuadorean)

Women can also obtain more favourable reunification rights through marriage.While obtaining Italian citizenship via ius sanguinis still requires less time comparedto the ius domicilii route (requiring 10 years of registered residence), applications cannow be submitted after only 2 years of marriage: consequently, if women wanted tofollow this route, they would have to remain tied to their husbands for a certainperiod of time.

As the case of Estrella reveals, husbands may ‘throw it back’ as a means to reclaimpower and authority over the family (Isaakyan and Triandafyllidou 2014), leading totension and abusive relationships that, in her case, led her reunited daughter to leavethe family home and, eventually, to a divorce:

My ex-husband used to hold it against her [her reunited daughter] saying things like ‘Ifit wasn’t for me, you couldn’t get away from that shit …’ This is why she left the home.Once they fought really hard and she told him: ‘I don’t owe you anything. I have to saythanks only to my mother, she’s the one I have to be grateful to’. I mean, he was so …You can’t say these kinds of things, like ‘This is my house, you don’t have anything here,when you arrived here you had nothing …’ I really couldn’t stand such a thing. (Estrella,Ecuadorean)

As this story reveals, the set of opportunities and constraints drawn by immigrationand naturalisation policies permeates intimacy relationships influencing the balance

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of power and dependencies experienced among spouses, but also among parents andchildren.

9. Formal and Informal Pathways: Defining the Family from Above and Below

As some have argued (Baizán, Beauchemin, and González-Ferrer 2014), familyreunification entails a double selection process: families, dealing with the constraintsposed by immigration policies, can opt for different pathways—in terms of who toreunite, when and how—varying greatly depending on the family relationship at stake.

As regard how family reunification is pursued, relatives were not always reunitedthrough legal family reunification provisions. This could be the effect of how thefamily is defined ‘from above’: adult children and elderly parents, being prevented, inmost cases, from reuniting their families legally, had no choice but finding otherways. But considerations are also made ‘from below’: even if some relatives could takeadvantage of the legal family reunification route, this was not necessarily thepreferred option.

This was especially evident in the case of reunited couples. When they wereestablished abroad with countrymen, reunifications were prevalently acted outthrough informal family reunification routes. For these dual-earner couples, it oftenmade more sense to apply for a tourist visa rather than waiting to meet for familyreunification conditions, especially at a time in which tourist entries were relativelyaccessible (Finotelli and Sciortino 2013). Together, they could work more effectivelyat both transnational and settlement-oriented projects, sharing the costs ofremittances and improving their local living conditions.

Contrarily, in the case of children, the how and when of family reunification areespecially relevant and reciprocally interrelated. The age of the children is, in fact,carefully considered when family reunifications are planned. Older children are oftenreunited first, to avoid the risk of excluding them from legal reunification provisionsand because they may represent a concrete resource for families, especially formothers who are the only family providers:

Why have you waited so long to reunite them?Before they were too young and they could not work. Now the oldest is 22 and it’s mucheasier … (Nancy, Ecuadorean)Why have you chosen Francisco?

Because he was the oldest there and he was turning 18 in April. The younger daughterwas 17 and … I hoped I could reunite her the following year, but when my son arrived,he could not find any job and also my eldest daughter here was working very few hours.I was working in a cleaning firm where I earned 500 euros and working as a baby sitter Icould get other 250 euros, but…And what about your daughter … would she have liked to come here as well?Yes, she’s alone there, and she’s a bit jealous of her siblings. But now she’s studying lawthere and I told her that when she finds a good job she’ll be able to come and visit me.(Estefania, Peruvian)

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As reunification strategies are often constrained by the limited resources available,mothers were often forced to make uneasy choices, as the case of Estefania reveals.While she hoped that with the help of her two eldest children she might have beenable to reunite her younger daughter, the former faced serious difficulties in findingjobs once in Italy, and now she has no chance to let her 19 years old legally enter thecountry.

Reuniting children at an older age also has some downsides. The more childrengrow up, the more difficult their educational and occupational mobility chancesabroad become. Children, growing up, participate more actively in the negotiation oftheir migratory trajectories: some children did not want to leave, others did not wantto stay and others, after having spent some time in the country, decided to move.

Telling is, in this respect, the case of the Murillos’ family. Mother, father and their17-year-old son entered as tourists in 2000 and overstayed: the mother soon foundwork as a live-in domestic worker while her husband and her son Mario passedthrough a long sequel of temporary and precarious jobs. When the 2002 amnesty wasissued, Rosario (the mother) was the only one in the family who could apply: afterhaving regularised, she let her husband obtain a family stay permit but could not dothe same for Mario, who was already nearly 20 years old. Undocumented, unable tofind stable employment and without any realistic prospect of obtaining legal status,his family strongly encouraged him to return to Ecuador to enrol in University, buthe refused and instead decided to take a chance in Spain, where he found a job in theconstruction field, finding, later on, a way to regularise.

This case shows that the chances and opportunities children face in the newcountry are not just influenced by when, but also by how they are reunited. Childrenreunited informally are excluded from the social mobility chances guaranteed byhigher education: this is why it was not the often preferred route, especially whenparents could guarantee them better education at home. The informal reunification ofminor children was especially perceived as undesirable, since the precarious livingand working conditions frequently experienced by undocumented parents madetaking care of young dependent children extremely challenging:

I’ve been undocumented myself, I entered as a tourist, it was easy … but I didn’t want tobring my children here to see them sleeping in bunk beds! (Nancy, Ecuadorean)

However, as the case of Isabel shows, informal reunification could sometimes qualifyas ‘emergency strategy’ women could opt for in case of serious transnational carecrisis:

She was in such a delicate age … and she was always calling me, crying and sayingmom, I want to stay with you … And one day I took this decision, without thinking toomuch […]. I went and bought a ticket for her. And my friend … when she knew that Iwas bringing her here … she was not happy at all. She tried to convince me not to do it.Because … I had no documents … she could study and everything. But for me … Youknow, I really wanted to have her with me. (Isabel, Ecuadorean)

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The words of Isabel clearly reveal how mothers can be torn between the desire toprovide their children with adequate care and living conditions and the emotionalstrain following prolonged separation caused by difficulties in obtaining papersand/or meeting maintenance requirements. Even though sharing undocumented liveswith their children could prove full of unexpected and serious hardships, women likeIsabel, pressed by their children, preferred this route to the feeling of loss and guiltthat prolonged transnational mothering entails (Boccagni 2012).

10. Caregivers or Care Receivers? The Role of Elderly Parents

What makes the situation of adult children similar to that of elderly parents is thatimmigration policies identify them as care receivers, instead of potential caregivers(or economic providers) notwithstanding the real roles and responsibilities they usedto carry out in their families.

The caregiving role of grandparents is especially relevant, both locally andtransnationally.

In Italy, where grandparents’ help in reconciling work and family is of greatimportance even for native families, one wonders to what extent the right to familyreunification guaranteed ‘on paper’ can actually be enjoyed by migrant workingwomen, especially in the case of children needing special and continuous care. This iswell exemplified by the case of Paulina, an Ecuadorean divorced mother of a seriouslydisabled child: even though she aimed at reuniting him as soon as possible in order toguarantee him better medical treatment, she could fulfil her plans only when shemanaged to also reunite her mother through a tourist visa:

Why did it take you so long to reunite him?Because for my mother it was not easy to decide what to do. She still had my sister there… and my father as well. When they made up their minds I did it immediately,everything was ready. He arrived in May and in September I quit my job. I would havecontinued, but these people could not understand my situation, they did not want me togo out. I just had two free Sundays per month. They didn’t want me to go out, nor tohost my family there. And I quit. After 9 years. I still remember the old lady crying …(Paulina, Ecuadorean)

While her case highlights how reunification projects often entails the collaborationand negotiation of a larger family network, her mother, who is helping her toreconcile work and care does not have any prospects for receiving a stay permit onfamily grounds.

The misrecognition of the caregiving role played by grandparents is even morestunning considering how crucial it is in mother-away transnational households(Bonizzoni and Boccagni 2013). As research has shown, grandparents are those whoare typically in charge of the care of children left behind by migrant parents(Bonizzoni 2012b) and after long, uninterrupted separations, especially when theseare experienced in the early stages of a child’s life, they can truly become ‘second

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parents’ to their grandchildren (Bonizzoni and Leonini 2013; Caneva 2014). It is sadlyironical that these shifting regimes of intimacy are, to a certain extent, the outcome ofthe migration policies: prolonging the physical separation of parents and children,substitute caregivers become more and more central in children’s everyday lives,generating a further disjuncture between the way family ties are actually lived andpolitically disciplined.

11. Concluding Remarks

The obstacles Latin American women faced and the resources they were able to bringinto play to finalise different kinds of reunification pathways should be read at thelight of their forms of participation to the labour market and of their specific familyformation patterns.

Segregation into the care and domestic sector leads to specific opportunities andconstraints. On the one hand, meeting maintenance requirements was often achallenge due to low salaries, widespread informality and hardly reconcilable workingschedules. This was especially true for single mothers, who were often forced to relyon the help of other family members (such as older children or their own mothers)in sharing the burdens of paid and unpaid care work. On the other hand, womenoften took advantage of ‘maternalist’ work relationships to obtain from employersresources that were often critical for reuniting their relatives. While to meet incomeand housing requirements women also relied on the support provided by networks ofrelatives and friends, the trustworthy relationships and the ‘family-like’ bonds ofreciprocal knowledge, intimacy and affection established after years of work in adomestic environment, often favoured exchanges that proved to be beneficial to bothemployers and their workers.

Some women benefited from more favourable family reunification regimes afterhaving married or given birth to Italian citizens. While these life-course eventsproved critical for realising migratory projects which had otherwise been unfeasible,the system of dependencies established by migration policies could leave women andtheir children potentially vulnerable to forms of abuse.

Decisions regarding whom to reunite, how and when, led to careful evaluationsand negotiations among women and their families, often leading them to makeuneasy choices. Women who did not have enough resources were forced to postponereunifications or to choose among their children. Contrary to what happens in thecase of spouses, the reunification of children is constrained by tight time limits, andseveral women lost this chance not having been quick enough in meetingmaintenance requirements.

Women could choose whether to reunite relatives through formal or informalroutes, a decision which is not just determined by how policies define the family‘from above’, but also by how family roles and responsibilities are practiced ‘frombelow’. Couples formed abroad rarely reunited through legal family reunificationroutes: for dual-earner couples, it often made more sense to work together at

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transnational or settlement-oriented mobility projects, taking advantage of relativelyaccessible tourist routes, instead of waiting for lengthy and uncertain familyreunification processes.

Adult children and elderly parents are, instead, in most cases, excluded from thechance of being legally reunited. Informal reunifications imply, however, facing theconsequences of irregularity, such as vulnerable and precarious economic andhousing conditions, exclusion from higher education and from care services.Reuniting—especially underage—children through this route was therefore preferablyavoided, while some mothers eventually resorted to this choice after havingexperienced transnational care crisis and the sufferings of transnational motherhood.

Reconciliation issues represent another gendered hurdle: segregated in hardlyreconcilable jobs in a city where affordable care services are scant, they are excludedfrom the help which often proves crucial for most low-income Italian families—theone of elderly parents—who are excluded from reunification opportunities despite thecrucial role they often play as caregivers at a local and transnational level.

The paper shows that family migration policies enforce a definition of a narrow,one-earner family, based on conjugal relationships which does not reflect how familyroles and responsibilities are concretely practiced and experienced in migrantfamilies. Major social cleavages—such as nationality/ethnicity, gender, age andclass—influence the constraints migrants face and the resources they can bring intoplay to concretise formal and informal reunification pathways. Through differentlyregulated, experienced and challenged family migration regimes, a highly unequallandscape of regulation and fruition of a fundamental human right has been created,showing the role of immigration policies in stratifying how families can reproduce inand across national borders.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

[1] The absolute number of migrants entitled to family-related stay permits rose from 92,073 in1992 (14.2% of the whole stay permits issued) to 1,608,322 in 2010 (47.3%).

[2] For reasons of dependent but also autonomous work (Turco-Napolitano Law), asylum,study, religious reasons as well as family reasons (decree n°15/2007).

[3] Even those under legal guardianship or foster care, adopted children and those of thespouse or of a previous relationship, if the other parent has given written consent.

[4] The decree re-established the requirements of the Bossi-Fini Law (30/07/2002, n. 189)which had been temporarily mitigated by Legislative decree n°15/2007, making reference tomore broadly defined ‘health conditions’.

[5] Legislative decree n°15/2007 broadly stated that parents should be dependent and that theyshould not have any other adequate family support in their country of origin.

[6] Law n°943/1986 generically talked about ‘normal living conditions’. The first reference toclearly established parameters appeared in 1995 (Decree Law n°489/1995).

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[7] An income-tested benefit geared towards over 65-years old who are neither eligible to anearnings-related pension nor to a contribution-based one (Ferrera 2005). Being inflationadjusted it is increased every year, and for 2015 it consists in 5830.76 euros yearly.

[8] The yearly amount of the Social Allowance should be increased by a half for every relativereunited, while in the case of two (or more) children under the age of 14 the amount shouldbe doubled.

[9] Refugees are exempted from housing and income requirements while those entitled tosubsidiary protection are asked for twice the Social Allowance amount, independently fromthe number of relatives they wish to bring.

[10] Law n°94/2009 removed the reference to the minimum housing standards appliedregionally to social housing without, however, defining other parameters. While asubsequent Circular of the Ministry of Interiors mentioned a 1975 Ministry of HealthDecree, Municipalities still enjoy a great degree of discretion leading to wide disparities overthe national territory and to abusive decisions, some of which have been legally challenged.

[11] The first law to allow access to the labour market was the Dini Decree that, however,stipulated a 1-year waiting period.

[12] After 5 years of uninterrupted residency, if income and language proficiency requirementsare met.

[13] While the law states that reunited relatives should be accorded a status of the same timelength as that of the sponsor, refusals were justified by the conditions attached topermanent residency which presume five uninterrupted years of legal stay in Italy as well aspassing an A2-level Italian language test. At the time, this research was carried out, MilanImmigration Offices released a long-term residency card only to minor children (thoseunder the age of 14 were also exempted from the Italian language test), while spouses wereasked to wait for 5 years to apply for it.

[14] Ufficio VII—Asilo e Immigrazione, Prot. n. 17272/7, 28th March 2008.[15] The Corte di Cassazione has repeatedly expressed the principle that parents have an

obligation towards their adult children which, as it happens for Italian families, does notend when they come of age but lasts until they are economically independent and properlyintegrated within the social context (Sez. I, 03/04/2002, n. 4765; Sez I, 30/08/1999, n. 9109;Sez. I, 08/09/1998, n. 8868; Sez. I, 07/05/1998, n. 4616).

[16] Migrants can ask for long-term residency on behalf of their children: maintenance andhousing requirements are the same as those applied to family reunification.

[17] The EU citizen’s family includes the spouse (even in same-sex marriages), descendantsunder 21 and dependent ascendants of the EU citizen and of his/her spouse. EuropeanStates should also facilitate the entry of other dependent (or cohabiting, in their country oforigin) relatives that for health reasons need the support of the EU citizen.

[18] European citizens are asked to provide proof of income, but the amount set by the SocialAllowance cannot be used as grounds for exclusion.

[19] Before Law n°94/2009 was approved, under the fourth degree of kinship.[20] Under art. 19 of the Unified Text of Law (proof of cohabitation is required).[21] Under art. 30 of the Unified Text of Law.[22] From 2009 (Law n°94) foreign spouses legally residing in Italy should wait 2 years (3 years

if residing abroad) before applying for naturalisation: while this waiting period is halved ifthe couple has children, it has been considerably increased (previously, only 6 months oflegal residence were required). Attempts were also made to prohibit marriage toundocumented citizens: however, the requirement of a stay permit was judged unconsti-tutional (Corte Costituzionale n. 245, 20/07/ 2011) and the prohibition was removed.

[23] Disciplined by Legislative Decree n°30/2007 through which Italy implemented theEuropean Directive 2004/38/CE.

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[24] The rate of female-headed household is especially high among Latin Americans: 15.4%compared to an average value of 8.8% among foreign-headed households (Comune diMilano 2011).

[25] Among Latin Americans, more than one woman out of three (34.6%) is married to anItalian man, compared to one foreign woman out of five (Comune di Milano 2011).

[26] Job segregation is stronger for migrant women than for migrant men: nearly 90% work infive professions—domestic worker, cleaning worker, waitress, nurse assistant, clerk (Istat2008); 40% of them work in the domestic sector (Fondazione Leone Moressa 2011).

[27] The average gross salary of the foreign workforce is 987 euros (compared with 1286 eurosof Italian workers): immigrant women earn on average 788 euros, compared with the 1131euros earned by Italian women. Salaries in the domestic and care sector are especially low(717 euros monthly) (Fondazione Leone Moressa 2011).

[28] Informality is especially widespread in the domestic sector, where half of all theundocumented foreign workers are estimated to work (Istat 2010), but also in othersectors (such as hotels and restaurants) where immigrant women are concentrated.

[29] Once having obtained their first residence permit immigrants can register at theMunicipality Offices: this registration should be repeated every time the stay permit isrenewed.

[30] The naturalisation process in Italy requires, in fact, at least 10 years of uninterruptedresidence, which has to be proven through the Municipality Proof of Registration.

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