Homer, you must save the modern-day Odysseuses

In the mid-1980s, in a square in Caserta used by Senegalese traders to sell various goods—almost all of which were of Camorra origin—I heard someone calling my name. A young man selling goods laid out on a cloth said to me: ‘Sir, pissà.’ He was very insistent, wriggling his body and pointing first to his eye and then to the cloth with the goods, whilst repeating: ‘Sir, pissà.’ After repeated chants, I realised that ‘pissà’ meant ‘to take a wee’, and in short, he was asking me to keep an eye on his goods whilst he found a toilet. And so, there was a role reversal: I became a street vendor, one of those who were known at the time as ‘vu cumprà’. I remained faithful to my task, continuing to keep an eye on the goods whilst enduring a barrage of stares from the people of Caserta that made me feel like an Italian in Algiers – a feeling that was fleeting yet unforgettable: I was a wretch, having gone from the affluent middle class to a street vendor.

Some time after that experience, whilst reading the Odyssey for work, I paused at Book VI, which tells of Odysseus’s arrival – shipwrecked, naked and shivering – on the island of the Phaeacians. There he is found by the king’s daughter, Nausicaa, who takes in a naked man, ragged, caked in salt and shivering with cold. Reflecting on all this and recalling when I’d found myself in the position of the ‘pissà’, I attended a branch meeting of Democrazia Proletaria and proposed that we do something for the Senegalese arriving in the city. ‘After all,’ I said, ‘they are modern-day Odysseuses, forced to beg their way past the rocks and waves to secure a decent landing.’ And so it was that an association was born: Africa Italia. Its aim was to welcome migrants and resolve some of their problems – those relating to food, accommodation and work. We aimed to emulate Arete and Alcinous with Odysseus—able to listen and ensure either a safe return home or a welcome stay in our own home. Ultimately, we failed to achieve many of our goals, and the organisation came to an end; after all, I do not believe I possess the same strong humanistic spirit that Homer did. For years thereafter, guided by that experience, I continued to work on immigration issues and eventually realised that migration invariably gives rise to major paradoxes that must be addressed. To do so, a serious debate on migration is needed: ours – and not just the Italian one – is certainly not that at all.

One is reminded of provincial stadiums that host teams playing in the lower leagues: in those venues, only the fan stands matter—in the middle there is nothing, in the sense that the general stands and grandstands are deserted. This is what democracy seems to have become: a matter of fan stands, slogans and little ability or desire to engage in reasoned debate. So we find ourselves caught between Nigel Farage, who states in his election manifesto that: “Record levels of mass immigration have damaged our country... Multiculturalism has brought in separate communities that reject our way of life’. And, still on the subject of Britain, it is worth noting the statements by Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, who in an article in The Guardian (2025) said that “Immigration is Britain’s superpower”. In Italy, the situation is similar: between calls to ‘welcome everyone’ and ‘send everyone back’, between clips showing immigrants – ironically referred to as ‘resources’ – throwing tantrums, and feel-good stories of immigrants who have managed to improve their lot. This polarisation serves a useful purpose for electoral ends.

Both sides are furious with each other, but not critical enough of their own arguments. Both sides are demanding that immigrants do whatever suits their own agenda (the progressives want migrants to solve the problem of the falling birth rate; the Marxists want them to bring about a revolution; those on the right want migrants to convert and fight against other migrants, thereby confirming prejudices that can be turned into campaign slogans), but neither is coming to terms with the conflicts that these demands force us to confront. The fact is that, whether we like it or not, immigration alters the size of a population and its composition in terms of age, skills, ethnicity, religion or other factors. Therefore, any commendable, welcome and valid proposal for migration policy (which essentially means making choices, deciding who to say ‘yes’ to and who to say ‘no’ to) should prompt us to reflect seriously on how immigration will affect population growth – and thus the composition of the population. In short, there are costs and benefits that ought to be considered; otherwise, the debate becomes polarised and sterile.

But speaking of paradoxes, let’s examine one: the one linked to demographics. This alone is enough to complicate the issue of immigration. On the one hand, there is an established fact: without immigration, the population in many high-income countries will decline due to falling birth rates (a global problem; by now, only the populations of sub-Saharan Africa have high fertility rates, but these will fall there too). Immigration can help countries tackle the challenge of an ageing population. However, on balance, this is far less effective than is commonly believed. A 2019 report by the European Commission concluded that: “Neither a rise in the birth rate nor increased immigration will halt population ageing.” Migrants may be young when they arrive and have more children, but they do not remain young: they age at the same rate as everyone else, and once they reach a standard of living close to ours, their fertility rate falls.

A study by the MPI (Migration Policy Institute) highlights that Spain’s recent demographic recovery plan lists “130 measures to tackle population ageing and regional decline without a single reference to migrants or integration, despite the government expanding immigration for demographic reasons”. Apart from the fact that many low- and middle-income countries that send a significant number of workers to high-income countries are ageing rapidly, there are already cases in the countries of destination of immigrant pensioners, some of whom lack residence permits, and many are reaching retirement age without a pension or healthcare. Among migrants returning to their country of origin after working abroad, many will lose their pension entitlements due to fragmented contributions. Therefore, with a view to sensible migration policies, countries need to start exploring now various and non-obvious ways of sharing the pension burden more equitably, including by granting migrants autonomy in managing their own pension funds. The MPI therefore emphasises: “Immigration can offer a partial solution to population ageing, alongside other measures such as raising the retirement age, investing in productivity, family-friendly policies and social security reforms. But for this to be effective, immigration must be integrated into a broader demographic strategy, rather than being regarded as a substitute for it.”

In short, whilst it is true that high population growth, fuelled by a large wave of migration, brings benefits for everyone, there are significant costs that are difficult to ignore. New arrivals need homes to live in and means of transport (the boom in e-scooters and other electric vehicles is linked to immigration), as well as a host of other things. If we do not give this any thought, we end up creating ghettos and forgetting all about them. To ensure we do not forget, we need to calculate the resources required. Just to give an example, in 2023, migration flows into the UK resulted in population growth of 1.3 per cent – probably the highest rate (excluding periods of war and their aftermath) in the last 200 years – but, on the other hand, to ensure that new residents had the same level of capital as existing residents, investment amounting to around 6 per cent of GDP would have been required – a third of the UK’s total investment expenditure. Therefore, it is not immigration that boosts productivity, but the role of integration policies. The MPI study, examining the case of the Netherlands, states that “here, three-quarters of current job vacancies could be filled if migrants participated in the labour market at the same rate as native-born workers. Language courses, career guidance, subsidised work experience and transition programmes can enable new arrivals to access work sooner, whilst also facilitating subsequent reskilling’.

This means that a serious migration policy cannot be separated from an equally serious and well-funded integration policy. After all, we cannot (nor is it right) to consider immigration in isolation from housing, infrastructure and pension policies. And this aspect is almost never taken into account, given the difficulty of thinking and planning for the long term. In other words, governments should view integration programmes as an investment in productivity, not as a cost to the welfare system, as is often the case.

The International Migration Review (one of the leading journals addressing socio-demographic, economic, historical, political and legislative issues related to immigration), in an article by Martin Ruhs and Philip Martin, examines this paradox between demography and immigration. It proposes finding a compromise between numbers and rights. There is an immigration rate beyond which migrants derive fewer economic and social benefits. Let us consider two examples. A migration policy that allows for high levels of immigration but grants migrants few rights and no possibility of obtaining permanent residence or citizenship. Countries such as the United Arab Emirates (where migrants account for over 75 per cent of the population) and other Gulf states are the ones that most closely resemble this model. The local population supports high levels of migration because the rules restricting migrants’ rights allow them to benefit from it. ‘Benefit’ is a euphemism; in reality, it is exploitation. In Italy, in the agricultural sector, the majority of the labour force harvesting our famous ‘Made in Italy’ early produce consists of slaves. The paradox is that while migrants may be treated badly, they may find themselves (or dream of) in a better situation than they would have been in had they remained in their countries of origin, so they accept this compromise. The other approach grants migrants greater rights. For example, for many there is a pathway to permanent residence and citizenship – and thus to rights. But in this case, it is more difficult to ensure that the population benefits from migration. If migrants have access to welfare benefits – in short, if they are not slaves – they will not pick the tomatoes. Consequently, employers will be more inclined to be selective about which migrants they take on. And if there are laws designed to limit this risk, an employer finds it more difficult (that is, less profitable) to hire migrant workers who are placed on an equal footing with non-migrant workers.

Ultimately, our binary and polarised debates on migration overlook the balance between numbers and rights – a balance that should be the cornerstone of a sound migration (and integration) policy. Instead, we are faced with a divide between those who are in favour of immigration, who want high levels of immigration alongside strong rights, and those on the other side who are opposed to immigration, preferring low levels of immigration and paying no heed to migrants’ rights. Both sides, mistakenly, pretend that no such compromise exists. Given that in the future – considering the current state of affairs and the new geopolitics of the markets – it could well be us Italians, our children and grandchildren who end up emigrating to Africa (we already leave Italy very easily today), so as not to experience that unpleasant feeling of becoming ‘pissà’ with no one to listen to us – and taking into account technological changes (such as AI, what jobs will be available, what kind of workforce should we envisage: mathematicians, IT specialists, assistants, carers, tomato pickers?), given that the OECD forecasts that by 2060 the old-age dependency ratio will reach 50 per cent – meaning there will be roughly one pensioner for every two workers – it is in our interest to implement integration policies straight away (which are currently an underutilised tool both for integrating marginalised groups into the labour market and for addressing specific skills shortages by seeking agreements between countries). Policies that provide not only for language learning (a Danish study found that additional language training significantly increased earnings, employment and the likelihood of continuing education), but also regulations to integrate workers into formal systems, thereby increasing tax revenue and enabling skills upgrading (bearing in mind that one-off regularisations are not attractive, but if they become systematic they may encourage people to enter the country through irregular channels).

In short, having taken all this into account, immigration should be planned without the involvement of football fan groups, not least because wherever excessive migration flows have been halted, this has always been achieved through agreements between countries. However, given the current climate surrounding these issues, the word ‘agreement’ seems to imply a defeat for one of the two fan groups, when in fact it is a compromise between rights and numbers, between reception and deportation. When we see fewer or no videos of migrants with mental health issues losing their temper, and hear fewer self-proclaimed gurus proclaiming the duty to welcome them, then perhaps we will be on the right track towards planning migration flows.