Intellettuali romeni a Roma tra brain drain e brain waste

This paper analyzes the peculiarities of the Romanian high skilled migrations in Rome through the "life stories" of many Romanian intellectuals who migrated to Italy collected in 80 in-depth interviews. It emerged from our interviews that highly qualified Romanian immigrants can be subdivided into a minority that has succeeded in finding a job corresponding to their qualifications, another group that has succeeded in obtaining, usually at the cost of huge efforts and after many years, a satisfactory position, though in a sector that is different from their qualification, and the ones that have instead been trapped in a situation of underemployment. Many of the causes of dissatisfaction and failure plaguing skilled Romanian migration are red tape involved in obtaining visas and work permits, when Romania was not yet a member of EU, failure to get official recognition of their qualifications, and lack of intellectual labor market in Italy.