Immigration and integration in rural areas and the agricultural sector: An EU perspective.

Immigrants in rural areas and immigrant employment in the agricultural sector have been studied from a variety of perspectives. However, we currently lack a bird's-eye view of these two phenomena covering all EU member states through time. This paper tackles that gap, first by describing the main features of immigrant settlement and economic integration in rural areas in the EU. Second, it offers an EU-wide overview of immigrants' integration in the agricultural sector. Then, it investigates empirically the degree to which the different characteristics of agricultural production in two member states – Italy and Spain – are associated with a migrant presence in the area. The study finds that, in the context of a shrinking agricultural labour force, the share of migrant workers in that sector in several regions is increasing over time. Migrants living in rural areas are more likely to be unemployed and face economic hardship than locals. Migrants employed in agriculture are, also, more likely to work in elementary occupations and temporary jobs. Finally, the case studies on Italy and Spain demonstrate that the relative size of the migrant population is related to the typology of agricultural land use and to the labour intensity and seasonality of cultivation. • Immigrants in rural areas tend to fare worse compared to the local population and to migrants living in cities and towns. • In the agricultural sector, migrant workers have steadily increased their share of total employment over time. • Migrants are more likely to work in elementary occupations, to be employees, and to have temporary forms of recruitment than locals. • In Italy and Spain migrants in rural areas tend settle where intensive agricultural production, a high degree of temporary employment prevails. • Quantitative analyses based on official stastistics face challenges in terms of under-representing the real number of migrants in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]