Early Access to Regular Employment and Long‐Term Immigrant Integration: Evidence from an Italian Amnesty Program

The early stages after arrival may play a crucial role in shaping immigrants’ long‐term integration trajectories. In this paper, we estimate the impact of obtaining regular employment within one year of arriving in Italy on the long‐term integration of immigrant individuals, approximately 10 years after arrival. A strong start in the host country is likely to play an important role in shaping long‐term integration outcomes and, ultimately, social cohesion. Despite a large literature on immigrant regularization, limited evidence exists on the causal impact of early access to regular employment on immigrants' long‐term social integration beyond labor market outcomes. To address this gap, we analyze a sample of immigrants from the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) Social Condition and Integration of Foreign Citizens survey conducted in Italy in 2011–2012. Our impact estimates rely on an instrumental variable approach, leveraging a 2002 amnesty that increased the probability of obtaining a regular job depending on the time of arrival. We find that early engagement in regular employment has beneficial effects on various integration indicators, including trust in institutions, language proficiency, and cultural assimilation.