Multi-National Populations in Europe: Migration Policies and Classifications of Migrants

The first part of the chapter refers to a descriptive and interpretative representation of migratory processes that have affected the countries of the European Union in recent years. The second examines the presence of migrants not belonging to the European Union according to the terminology and conceptual categories existing in reference to current legislation and the sociology of the migrations. The third and final part seeks to highlight the social, economic and institutional factors which, with a degree of plausibility, can be connected to the manifestation of various types of health problems the migrant population encounters in the new country of residence. Problems which perhaps find an environment that fosters their development in predisposed physical constitutions, but that then (also) have the opportunity to develop and assume greater intensity in relation to the new social environment in which each migrant comes to reside. The three parts into which the chapter is divided therefore concern migrants in the countries that make up the European Union, with a particular focus on non-EU citizens.