Constructing New Demographic Dataset for Foreigners in Italy: Record linkage on Administrative Sources

Eleonora Mussino, Università di Roma
Claudia Iaccarino, Instituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT)
Sabrina Prati, Instituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT)
Salvatore Strozza, University of Naples Federico II

Since the last census in 2001 the number of foreigners in Italy has increased rapidly: today they represent almost 7.2% of the total population. How much information do we have about them? How do they behave? What are their characteristics ? We used data from the Survey on Live Births of the resident population and from the Residence permits of the Ministry of the Interior in Italy. We used record linkage techniques to identify the same individual in different databases using common characteristics and the information available in the single files. The main novelty of this work is the use of stock data from administrative registers to construct a longitudinal dataset that includes information on births and migrations in a determinate period. The aim is to show problems, strategies and results of the record linkage procedures and possible applications of the new dataset.