Abstract

Domestic work is the main topic of a recent thread of immigration studies that regards Italy as a main field for research. As in many other southern European countries, in the last thirty years Italy has witnessed a growth of domestic servants, mostly live-in and of immigrant origin. The article reviews some recent books about immigrants in the Italian domestic service sector. These books call attention to the fact that the entry of immigrants in the domestic service sector is the consequence of: a new role of women in the globalisation, particularly in the new international division of reproductive labour); the formation of "transnational families"; the growing demand from middle-class active women in need of services denied by the Italian welfare state; the absence of a re-balance of the domestic tasks between men and women in the household; the "racialisation" of some immigrants in the receiving countries (accepted as labour forces, but refused as women and mothers). These books invite us to take more seriously the presence of a neglected, but important, side of Italian migration systems. The article suggests that we need to know more about the dimension of European societies and the changes that occurred in it.