The Return Intentions of North African Migrants in Italy

Migrants return intentions are directly linked to the integration in the receiving country but also to the migratory project that is behind the initial migration and to the presence (or absence) of family members in the country of origin (or destination). The latter may imply the so called “pendulum migration” (de Haas H., Fokkema T., 2010), i.e. migrants that spend a part of the year in their country of origin, even if they reside legally in Europe where they spend the rest of the year. The aim of this work is to shed light on return intentions of the North African migrants in Italy, exploring their evolution eventually linked to the Arab springs. In order to answer to our research questions, we use a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. We lead a quantitative multivariate analysis on return intention of North Africans migrants in Italy, based on the 2009 Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC). Qualitative analysis based on interviews to North Africans migrants in Italy will be used to better understand the “pendulum migration” phenomenon and the consequence of Arab springs on return intentions.