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Abstract

Does the management of asylum systems by non-profit as opposed to for-profit organizations affect workers’ experiences and satisfaction? This study explores this question through interviews with workers and other stakeholders involved in the daily implementation of asylum policy in Italy and Ireland: Italy has a public system managed by civil society actors, whereas Ireland subcontracts management to for-profit actors. We find that job satisfaction is generally high; however, a non-profit system improves workers’ experiences by providing value-based meaningfulness and interconnectedness with other public services, whereas a for-profit system provides less support in terms of available networks, regulation, transparency, and accountability. We argue that each system is the product of its state’s administrative tradition, which also shapes workers’ conceptualization of job satisfaction; however, a for-profit implementation model is ill-suited to asylum policy, especially when located within a broader context of marketized state services.

Keywords

Comparative asylum policy non-profit sector policy implementation privatization semi-structured interviews street-level bureaucracy workers’ well-being

Introduction

Forced migration has been at the forefront of European public debates over the last decade. Despite repeated attempts at policy harmonization within the European Union and calls for the fair redistribution of forced migrants, European states continue to implement their own very diverse asylum policies. This includes reception conditions for forced migrants, which vary considerably across countries (Asylum Information Database (AIDA), 2020).

Asylum policy implementation is also flawed: in various national contexts, reports have highlighted long waiting times for decisions on asylum status, cramped, unhygienic, and unsafe living conditions, scarce access to services such as healthcare, education, and employment opportunities, and episodes of racism and discrimination from local communities, asylum services staff, and other institutions, especially toward non-white migrants (AIDA, 2020). Variation in implementation has also been observed within countries: the “localized” element of asylum policies, or the influence of local context in shaping how policy is implemented, is consistently more relevant than the “globalizing” impact of international norms pushing for uniformity of practices across and within countries (Glorius and Doomernik, 2020).

While it is evident that asylum policies are highly diverse and imperfectly implemented, it remains unclear what combination of factors determines implementation outcomes. Asylum systems are state institutions, embedded in a context which influences their design. System design in turn influences organizational culture, working conditions, and workers’ practices. Within this complex chain of relations, we focus on the possible relevance of asylum systems’ non-profit or for-profit nature for asylum policy implementation. How does the non-profit/for-profit orientation of organizations implementing asylum policy impact working conditions for their workers and therefore the functioning of asylum systems? We compare the asylum systems in Ireland and Italy. The Italian SAI system (Sistema di Accoglienza e Integrazione or Reception and Integration System) is managed by city councils through non-profit actors such as charities and social cooperatives, whereas the Irish Direct Provision system is entirely subcontracted to private, for-profit actors. Interviews with workers, civil servants, and volunteers are analyzed to assess whether and how their experiences and perceptions are influenced by the privatized or non-privatized design of the asylum system.

Research on asylum systems has not fully explored the perspectives of the workers who are responsible for their daily functioning, nor how the non-profit or for-profit design of the system may influence their experiences. We seek to compare how workers and other stakeholders involved in the daily management of asylum systems experience their job in two different models, one for-profit and one non-profit. Based on our findings, we argue that non-profit models may be ill-suited to addressing the complexities of asylum systems and adequately supporting asylum workers in their tasks.

Literature review: asylum policy and its privatization

Countries which receive asylum applications are responsible for hosting applicants while the application is processed. Asylum policy has some characteristics that make it distinct and particularly contentious compared to other policy areas such as healthcare or education. It has to respond to an unpredictable phenomenon such as forced migration, which introduces a visibly different group into the polity that cannot be rejected due to international law obligations; it is explicitly targeted toward non-citizens; its beneficiaries have particularly complex and acute needs, which require an accordingly complex system of concerted policy actions; the dispersal of forced migrants across the receiving country’s territory involves a wide and diverse range of actors, processes, and local contexts in service delivery. For all these reasons, asylum policy choices are likely to be particularly contradictory, polarizing, and often unsuccessful (Breidahl and Brodkin, 2024).

If asylum policy is conceptualized as a process from first reception of asylum seekers to recognition of refugee status and full integration, there are many points along the way where this process could vary, thanks to the influence of multiple factors. Research has highlighted several of these factors: political and media discourses (Krzyżanowski et al., 2018), macroeconomic trends (Heizmann et al., 2018), social attitudes toward migrants (Wang and Kim, 2020), local constraints and resources (Glorius and Doomernik, 2020), the culture of the specific organization tasked with implementing policy (Shiff, 2021), and even the individual characteristics of workers (Giudici, 2020). All these interact at different levels to produce the daily implementation of policy grounded in its specific context.

The design of an asylum system as publicly or privately managed is one of these multiple influencing factors, whose significance has not been thoroughly explored. Privatization of asylum services follows the neoliberal turn in public administration adopted by Western countries from the 1980s (Peters, 2012). This approach introduced privatization, managerialism, and principles of cost-effectiveness into public services to various degrees. The choice of privatizing state institutions has wide-ranging consequences on their functioning, including the experiences of its workers. Organizational sociologists have long drawn attention to how institutional context affects the behavior of workers by creating shared cognitive and normative frameworks (Olsen and March, 2004). Privatizing public services changes their organizational context and therefore workers’ attitudes and practices.

The literature on the non-profit versus for-profit delivery of public services, while not always adopting a comparative framework, illustrates how privatization opens public services to market competition, increasing fragmentation and inequality in working conditions and undermining both job quality and labor protections (Mori, 2017; O’Neill et al., 2023); by blurring the boundaries between public and private, it creates new categories of “private state workers” (Maron, 2022) employed by private companies but delivering public services, who must balance private sector practices and priorities with the imperatives and boundaries of public service provision; it even changes the nature of workers’ attachment to their job, emphasizing ideals of self-management and self-entrepreneurship instead of community and solidarity (Musílek et al., 2020). These changes add complexity to workers’ experiences and create new puzzles and analytical categories for research.

The nascent for-profit “asylum industry” (Darling, 2016) involving private actors to varying extents has caused a public/private divide in asylum service provision, which is not extensively addressed by comparative research on asylum systems (Caponio et al., 2019; Glorius and Doomernik, 2020). Conversely, research examining the consequences of privatization on the implementation of asylum policy lacks an explicitly comparative element, and it mostly focuses on its effects on migrants rather than workers. Nonetheless, these studies (Darling, 2016; Humphris and Sigona, 2019; Vianelli, 2022) highlight how privatizing asylum services encourages budget-saving decisions and the emergence of multiple providers; this in turn causes uneven delivery of services, disperses expertise, and increases insecurity, ultimately widening the distance between upper management and field workers and between field workers and service users. Distance and fragmentation hinder accountability, leaving more space for violations of migrants’ rights (Yin, 2023).

Despite increasing privatization, public or non-profit provision of asylum services remains common, usually within a multilevel governance framework which allows local governments to control many aspects of it (Caponio et al., 2019). This multilevel structure creates the potential for conflict between levels (Ambrosini, 2021), normative confusion and breakdowns in communication which can negatively affect the functioning of the system (Caponio et al., 2019). The increasing involvement of civil society, often only at the local level and for selected services, implies that fragmentation, uneven quality of service, and lack of coordination between providers can be obstacles in this model, too. However, civil society involvement also fosters the social inclusion of migrants thanks to pre-existing links with local communities (Galera et al., 2018).

The literature also tends to overlook frontline workers and other stakeholders managing the asylum system in favor of other subgroups involved in asylum policy, such as legal caseworkers assessing asylum applications (Miaz, 2024; Shiff, 2021) and mainstream social workers occasionally interacting with migrants (Humphris and Sigona, 2019). Very few studies (Breidahl and Brodkin, 2024; Giacomelli, 2021; Giudici, 2020) examine the staff of reception centers; yet these are the workers implementing asylum policy in its most tangible and ordinary way, catering to the daily needs of forced migrants and mediating their contact with the host society (Giacomelli, 2021). They are “street-level bureaucrats” (Lipsky, 2010) who implement policy in its context. Existing research has highlighted the complex, delicate, and highly relation-oriented nature of their daily practices (Giacomelli, 2021); their ability to critically appraise and challenge the system (Giudici, 2020); and their discretion in adapting policy to its context, concretely determining its content and form (Breidahl and Brodkin, 2024). Including the perceptions and experiences of frontline workers is crucial to understanding how the system works and why, and could provide insights that research on other aspects of asylum policy, such as legal procedures, overlooks. Furthermore, none of the existing studies compare asylum workers’ experiences across different countries, institutional contexts, and models of asylum governance, for example, public versus private.

We ask how privatization impacts asylum policy implementation as observed through workers’ perspectives. This approach views the asylum system’s design, the working conditions of asylum street-level bureaucrats, and the final outcomes in terms of workers’ actions as part of the same continuum in asylum policy implementation. While acknowledging that many other elements influence how an asylum system works, we focus on the non-profit versus for-profit nature of the system due to its wide-ranging implications and its understudied relevance. At the same time, we highlight the perspective of street-level bureaucrats due to their role as ultimate agents of policy implementation whose work is affected by the for-profit or non-profit institutional context. This study seeks to complement our understanding of how asylum policy works on the ground and to provide a starting point for analyzing the link between institutional context and outcomes for forced migrants.

Asylum in Italy and Ireland

Both Italy and Ireland have adopted EU directives on asylum policy. The resulting asylum process is very similar: migrants apply for asylum and can receive refugee status, other forms of protection or a rejection. Rejections can be appealed. While the application is processed, migrants can avail of reception systems which include accommodation and other forms of assistance. While there are minimum EU standards, the nature and extent of this assistance vary widely across countries.

The Italian SAI system was introduced in 2001 based on pre-existing community-based reception systems, developed by some municipalities in 1999 in the absence of a clear legal and administrative framework. It is based on bottom-up, multilevel governance, devolving many powers and responsibilities to local authorities and civil society actors.

SAI is predicated on the concept of “diffused reception,” whereby forced migrants are dispersed through a city in own-door accommodation or small shared facilities. Ownership of SAI lies with municipalities, who volunteer places according to capacity; they then subcontract management to non-profit actors, such as social cooperatives and NGOs, selected via public tender. The Ministry of the Interior establishes minimum standards for accommodation and services, distributes beneficiaries, and periodically inspects facilities and staff. SAI is regulated by “operators’ manuals” containing exhaustive rules and guidelines for the management of beneficiaries and the composition of the working team. These documents acknowledge that integration looks different for each individual; the ultimate goal is thus to develop personalized pathways to integration and autonomy for asylum seekers and refugees. This involves a holistic, flexible, and individualized approach, with multiple professionals addressing different dimensions of integration, such as job training and job security, Italian language proficiency, healthcare and childcare, and access to welfare and leisure activities. Manuals emphasize teamwork and recommend close cooperation with other state institutions and civil society actors, relying on the resources the community offers. SAI also mandates regular staff meetings with psychotherapists. Financial transparency and budget requirements are particularly strict: SAI projects must provide detailed quotes to participate in tenders, but are only funded through reimbursements after they have justified appropriate expenses with receipts, according to detailed lists of reimbursable items and services. SAI has been praised for its long-term perspective, organic approach, and emphasis on own-door accommodation and autonomy (D’Angelo, 2019; Giacomelli, 2021).

SAI is, however, also challenged by its decentralized nature and participatory framework. Because participation is voluntary, local authorities can and do refuse to receive migrants (Ambrosini, 2021). Beneficiaries are distributed randomly, based almost exclusively on availability, and experiences differ significantly across regions and cities (Oxfam Italia, 2017). The decentralized nature of the system means that local authorities have the power to create formal and informal barriers to rights (Ambrosini, 2021). Finally, the heavy regulatory and bureaucratic requirements can cause confusion and conflict with the central state (D’Angelo, 2019; Giacomelli, 2021).

It should be noted that while SAI is the official Italian asylum system, a growing number of “emergency” reception centers (Centri di Accoglienza Straordinaria or CAS) have been established since 2011, in response to increasing and unexpected numbers of asylum seekers. CAS centers require much less bureaucracy and resources and are oriented to cost-effectiveness, resulting in large, self-sufficient structures, a reduced budget, fewer staff, and fewer services for migrants. Unlike SAI tenders, CAS tenders are open to private firms. Latest figures (Ministry of the Interior, 2023) show that SAI is hosting approximately 25 percent of all forced migrants in Italy.

The Irish Direct Provision system (DP) offers a completely different picture. It was established in 1999 and has remained unchanged since. It has no footing in statutory law, but it is based on a series of administrative circulars. It is the only EU asylum system where executive responsibility is entrusted exclusively to service providers (European Migration Network (EMN), 2014). DP is overseen by the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS), part of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY). All DP centers are privately managed by for-profit actors, including multinational corporations, property management firms, events management firms, and hospitality firms. Ireland uses a European tender procedure targeting suppliers of “hotel services and other accommodation services” for the provision of “catering services, cleaning, laundry facilities, provision of certain consumables and security services” (Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY), 2022). Sample contracts (International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS), 2016) cover minimum accommodation standards, catering services, security norms, payments to the contractor, and penalties in case the contractor fails to deliver “mandatory services” such as food and cleaning. Contracts require an “appropriate” number of staff vetted by the police. No other services are mentioned, although the contractor is required to “conduct regular meetings with residents to disseminate information and allow residents to raise any issues of concern,” and to “maintain all existing arrangements with outside agencies (e.g. NGOs, Health Boards, and educational or other support groups)” (IPAS, 2016).

DP is mostly based in large collective facilities where residents share rooms. Access to healthcare, welfare, education, and other services is mainstreamed: the system does not mandate assistance beyond a weekly allowance of around €40, and residents are expected to use mainstream channels to access public services (Office of the Ombudsman, 2018). DP has been described as a system of institutionalized legal, social, and spatial exclusion (Ní Raghallaigh et al., 2021). Various studies have documented substandard living conditions and their detrimental effects on the mental health of residents (Moran et al., 2019), family life, and child well-being (Ní Raghallaigh et al., 2021). Inequalities in accessing services and resources have been reported, in some cases due to workers’ individual discretion (Office of the Ombudsman, 2018). DP has also been criticized for a lack of transparency and accountability, as contractors are not directly subject to the scrutiny of public law (Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), 2019). In 2021, the Irish government announced a reform plan to overhaul DP, which however was never implemented. Moreover, the increase in the number of asylum seekers has caused the proliferation of emergency accommodation centers (EROCs), managed by the same actors under very similar contracts (DCEDIY, 2022). As of July 2023, the IPAS website states that single asylum seekers arriving in Ireland “will not be immediately offered a place to stay.”

The design of asylum systems in Italy and Ireland mirrors their different administrative traditions. Esping-Andersen’s (1990) welfare state typology places Italy in the corporativist state group. These states display a high level of state involvement in the provision of welfare and a low level of contestation around social rights, which typically prevail over free-market considerations. Corporativist states tend to preserve social stratifications and rely on nonstate institutions such as families to provide services. Ferrera (1996) further theorized a “Mediterranean” welfare regime, characterized by fragmentation and regional diversity, an over-proliferation of institutions, high levels of clientelism, and low efficiency and effectiveness. A neoliberal restructuring of the Italian state commenced in the 1990s, though a more comprehensive welfare state developed after the 2008 crisis (Sacchi, 2018). Civil society organizations, which have always had a key role in the provision of social services in Italy, were increasingly co-opted after the 2008 crisis, leading to their “hyper-embeddedness” with each other and with state institutions (Busso, 2018). Italian public service workers in areas such as home care and social work have reported chronic understaffing and underresourcing, and an excessive dependency on political dynamics (Dorigatti et al., 2020), but also high levels of job satisfaction, especially linked to intrinsic motivations (Borzaga and Tortia, 2006). The “Mediterranean” tradition of centralization, hierarchy, and plurality of service providers (Ferrera, 1996) results in workers relying on networks and inter-institutional cooperation across policy areas (Rizza and Lucciarini, 2021).

In Esping-Andersen’s classification, Ireland is a liberal state, characterized by low state expenditure and limited welfare services. The Irish state has a “relatively minimal role” (Murphy and Dukelow, 2016: 13) and historically relied on families or the Church for the provision of many welfare services (and in this respect resembles some corporativist welfare regimes). Capital-friendly and competition-oriented economic policies adopted from the 1990s further shrank the role of the state. Furthermore, until very recently, Ireland has lacked a distinct left/right political divide, thus neoliberal policy preferences could be adopted with consensus across the spectrum (Kitchin et al., 2012). The combination of post-crisis austerity measures, an economic strategy aimed at attracting foreign capital, and neoliberal policies has resulted in the state using different forms of marketization and privatization to retreat from the provision of services (Murphy and Dukelow, 2016). The negative consequences of marketization on workers’ experiences, including lower skill-related barriers for staff, fragmentation of expertise, lack of adequate communication and coordination with other stakeholders, and generally poor working conditions, have been noted across Irish policy sectors such as healthcare (Jalili et al., 2024), elder care (O’Neill et al., 2023), and childcare (Mooney Simmie and Murphy, 2023), although levels of job satisfaction are mixed.

Theoretical framework

Asylum systems are one of the many institutions which compose a state and are responsible for designing and implementing asylum policies. Institutions are “formal or informal procedures, routines, norms, and conventions in the organisational structure of the polity or the political economy” (Amenta and Ramsey, 2010: 18). Institutions are both a product and an active part of their context: they are shaped by interactions with individuals and other institutions and by external shocks, and in turn, they contribute to shaping their environment (Pierson and Skocpol, 2002). Consequently, different states will vary in their administrative tradition, or in how they distribute power, organize, and use bureaucracy, and interact with the market (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Hall and Soskice, 2001).

States also differ in the extent to which they involve civil society and/or private actors in service provision. These partnerships are increasingly common (Mori, 2017; Peters, 2012) and complicate service provision by involving non-state actors characterized by different “institutional templates” (Johnson et al., 2000). For analytical purposes, public and non-profit institutions can be considered as having a distinct and similar identity, based not on profitability but on solving social problems (Radić et al., 2021). Public institutions are often integrated within a network of state resources and knowledge which workers can mobilize. However, they are also argued to be more bureaucratized and more rigidly hierarchical; less likely to innovate and more prone to path dependency, that is the tendency to resist change in order to remain on a course of action dictated by previous choices (Sydow et al., 2020); more likely to be underfunded and understaffed due to overstretched public resources; and more influenced by political change and clientelism. Underfunding and political logics can also affect non-profit institutions entering partnerships with the state, since they depend on public resources and on maintaining positive relationships with funders (Venter et al., 2019).

For-profit institutions are also increasingly involved in the provision of public services. They seek cost-efficiency, so other concerns, including quality of service, may be secondary; they are less bound by state regulations and therefore by duties of transparency and accountability (Schmid, 2003); because they operate in a competitive market, they are arguably more incentivized to attract expert staff, and to innovate (Bysted and Hansen, 2015). However, there is no consensus on whether marketized institutions are always more cost-effective, innovative, and attract better personnel (LeRoux and Feeney, 2013; Radić et al., 2021).

As previously mentioned, different institutional templates also create different environments and experiences for workers. Institutions influence the behavior of their members and shape the boundaries of their action by prescribing appropriate goals, shared values, roles, identities, modes of action, and ways of relating to colleagues, managers, service users, and other stakeholders (Breidahl and Brodkin, 2024; Olsen and March, 2004). Research on various elements of workers’ experiences, such as stress, intention to stay, and commitment to institutional values, has reached mixed conclusions: differences appear to be largely related to the specific job or to demographic factors, and not to the public/private cleavage. However, some trends are clear. The public and non-profit sectors typically offer lower wages, fewer fringe benefits, and fewer promotion opportunities than the private sector; yet workers often perceive that this is compensated by higher job security (LeRoux and Feeney, 2013) and a better work–life balance (Buelens and Van den Broeck, 2007). Motivational structures also differ. Workers in a public or non-profit institution are more likely to be motivated by intrinsic and value-based factors, such as the opportunity to serve the community or change society, reflecting their institution’s concern with social problems and solidarity over profit and cost-effectiveness. Conversely, private workers are more likely to be motivated by external factors, such as pay or advancement prospects (Buelens and Van den Broeck, 2007; Venter et al., 2019). Finally, different institutional features force workers to deal with different norms and practices: for example, the bureaucratization typical of public institutions encourages workers to value hierarchies, processes, and compliance with regulations, while private institutions value individuality, outcomes, and flexibility. This can make the connection between workers’ actions and visible results less evident to public sector workers, leading to a lower sense of control (Lyons et al., 2006).

Organizational culture, together with individual factors such as gender, age, or self-esteem, has a direct influence on job satisfaction, or the degree to which workers like their job and workplace experience, and perceive it as rewarding and appropriate to their skills and aspirations (Lange, 2015). A high level of job satisfaction increases workers’ sense of agency, morale, and commitment; decreases stress and turnover; and improves performance (LeRoux and Feeney, 2013). Arguably, a high level of job satisfaction is particularly important when workers operate in a complex and constrained environment such as public policy implementation; and even more so in the field of asylum, which not only requires multiple skills to perform diverse tasks, but is also highly contentious and ethically salient, as it concretely shapes the living conditions and prospects of service users.

Methodology

The potentially differential effect of profit versus non-profit management in the functioning of asylum systems was explored through a comparative case study approach. This approach (Bartlett and Vavrus, 2017) allows the researcher to observe a phenomenon not only across sites but also across its micro, meso, and macro dimensions. It adopts a context- and relationship-oriented understanding of cases, acknowledging that relevant cases are socially constructed, and sees analysis as an iterative and flexible process. Accordingly, we paid particular attention to the interplay of contextual elements in shaping policy-as-produced (Breidahl and Brodkin, 2024). Ireland and Italy were chosen as their asylum systems were developed at roughly the same time but evolved in opposite directions; Ireland has a completely privatized system, while Italy has a public system subcontracted to non-profit and civil society actors.

Individual, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 39 workers (including staff and managers of centers), civil servants, and volunteers (see Table 1); of these, 19 were working in Ireland and 20 in Italy. Interviewees perform various tasks related to the management of the asylum system and the needs of forced migrants. These vary considerably based on what the systems prescribe and on interviewees’ specific roles, skills, and inclinations; they can include distributing food and other material goods, following the legal asylum application process, assisting migrants in seeking employment, overseeing medical issues, delivering language classes, and more.

Table 1.

Interviewees’ location, job type, gender, ethnicity, and nationality.

	Location		Job type			Gender		Ethnicity		Nationality
	Urban	Rural	Staff (incl. managers)	Civil servants	Volunteers	M	F	White	Other	Native	Immigrant
IT	8	12	19	1	0	7	13	20	0	20	0
IE	8	11	12	3	4	7	12	19	0	16	3

Ethical consent was obtained for the study prior to interviews. Potential interviewees were approached using public lists of SAI and DP centers. Emergency centers were excluded to ensure that interviews reflected the context of the “ordinary” system. Interviewees were initially selected with the goal of covering diverse contexts in both Italy and Ireland. In each country, a center in a major city and a center in a rural, historically more conservative location were contacted. In Italy, the interviewer’s personal contacts and previous experience working in the urban SAI project helped recruit participants. Difficulties in recruiting Irish interviewees due to scheduling conflicts and concerns about privacy resulted in the Irish sample being broadened to multiple centers, located in three cities and three rural locations. The key role of volunteers and civil servants in the Irish system emerged from initial interviews and the Irish sample was subsequently broadened to include them. The final sample was limited to 39 interviewees due to time constraints and access issues in Ireland.

Interviews were conducted both online and in person between January and May 2023; the interviewer personally conducted interviews using English in Ireland and Italian in Italy. An interview guide was developed prior to interviews, based on existing literature on the two countries’ asylum systems and on available legal and policy documents, such as SAI manuals, which provided a benchmark for institutional goals and procedures. The interview guide included questions about personal and organizational background; work routine, including main tasks, decision-making processes, and interaction with other stakeholders; perceptions and opinions of the job, including challenges and sources of reward, relationship with residents and the local community, and reflections on the nature of the system at a broader level. These questions aimed at obtaining a comprehensive picture of the system as perceived by the workers within it and ascertaining whether some of the perceived challenges or flaws might be a consequence of the system being for-profit or non-profit. All interviewees signed informed consent forms provided to them in their preferred language (Italian or English).

Data were analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006). This method qualitatively analyzes rich texts to identify common themes, shared meanings, and patterns. It is particularly suited to analyze complex subject matters, as it proceeds from the data and adapts to them, analyzing emerging concepts and building connections between them. Thematic analysis also assumes that reality is socially constructed and thus is particularly conscious of the context within which actors produce and reproduce meanings.

Interviews were transcribed verbatim and transcripts were then coded and analyzed. First, simple thematic categories were created by letting broad themes emerge from transcripts. A theme being present only in one national case, or in both, was considered potentially significant due to the comparative nature of this research. In the second stage of analysis, thematic categories were further analyzed and coded for discursive patterns and categories related to the main thematic categories, such as “professional identity and personal identity,” “empathy,” and “uncertainty.” This allowed the analysis to move beyond a simple description of findings and toward a deeper understanding of the dynamics at play.

Asylum is a highly contentious topic in both countries and particularly in Ireland at the time of the interviews. Furthermore, the asylum sector is quite small, particularly in Ireland, which caused concerns about interviewees being identified and potentially exposed to backlash. As such, centers which accepted to participate were perhaps less concerned about possible repercussions; a mechanism of self-selection cannot thus be excluded.

Findings

Interviews with the staff of SAI and DP centers highlighted how the profit versus non-profit design of the system concretely affects their experiences in many respects. The rural/urban location of centers did not significantly affect interviewees’ accounts, which were remarkably similar across locations in each country. Table 2 summarizes the main cross-country differences and similarities emerging from interviews.

Table 2.

Main interview themes with main findings from Italian and Irish interviews.

Theme	Italian interviewees	Irish interviewees
Skills and background	Third-level education, relevant prior experiences	Third-level education rare, no relevant prior experiences (exception: civil servants and volunteers)
(Initial) Motivation and job satisfaction	Intrinsic motivation: prominent value-based element High levels of satisfaction	Extrinsic motivation: job chosen for practical reasons, intrinsic rewards developed in job Generally high levels of satisfaction
Interconnectedness with other services	High level: • Makes the job easier • Plurality of actors can result in delays	Low level: • Lack of communication/support • Sense of isolation
Regulation	High level: • Teamwork and collegiality • Bureaucracy and strict requirements sometimes frustrating	Low level: • Overall adequate • Lack of training; lack of disciplinary measures for residents
Opinion of non-profit/for-profit dimension	High level of critical reflection: • Public sector unstable, underfunded, and politicized • Low level of societal recognition	Low level of critical reflection: • Private model not questioned (exception: civil servants and volunteers)

Skills and background of staff

The first relevant aspect is the professional profile of staff members. Findings confirm that the private sector does not necessarily attract more skilled workers (LeRoux and Feeney, 2013). Almost all Italian workers have a third-level qualification in a relevant subject, such as political sciences or education. Most also have relevant previous experience, for example, in social work. Furthermore, they receive extensive and ongoing job training. By contrast, very few of the DP center staff have third-level education, and none have relevant educational background. Previous work experiences are diverse, mostly in hospitality and administration. Most workers reported they “dropped in CVs everywhere” or “fell into the job” by applying for entry-level positions; in some cases, they did not know they were going to be working in a DP center before their interview. Others got the job through acquaintances or family members who worked in DP centers. On the other hand, all Irish civil servants interviewed have relevant educational and professional background, and all volunteers have third-level education.

These differences in skills and expertise are a consequence of differences in system design. Italian non-profit organizations use their long-established experience in the asylum sector and SAI’s detailed regulations to hire workers with specific qualifications and backgrounds, whereas in Ireland there is no skill-related barrier to working in DP, for either organizations or individuals. Subsequently, Italian workers have specific skills and expertise to deal with the complex management of the system and the multi-faceted needs of forced migrants, whereas Irish workers are less equipped with specialized knowledge and tend to learn informally on the job. These differences result in different daily implementation practices, modes of relationship with migrants, coworkers, and other institutions that may impact outcomes: for example, Irish interviewees do not have frequent and regular staff meetings and they do not maintain a detailed file for migrants, which makes it harder to track individual needs and circumstances and to implement tailored policy actions.

It is also noteworthy that unlike the staff of centers, Irish civil servants and volunteers are highly educated, even though volunteers may not have relevant skills. To different extents, civil servants and volunteers also consciously choose to devote their career or their time to this policy area, unlike most workers who happen into the job. Again, these differences exemplify how privatization can lower requirements for actors delivering services, dispersing expertise and knowledge (Mori, 2017), and causing the proliferation of multiple actors with different capabilities operating in the same policy area (Darling, 2016). This trend has been observed in other sectors of Irish public services (Jalili et al., 2024). In the Irish asylum system, relevant competences are confined to “complementary” stakeholders and not to the “ordinary” service providers. As illustrated below, this is not without consequences.

Motivation and job satisfaction

Workers’ motivations are intimately linked to the institutional context: in a non-profit system, motivation has a prominent value-based component which enables the attraction and retention of skilled workers, even in the absence of incentives such as career progression and pay (Venter et al., 2019). Intrinsic motivation seems much less relevant in a private system (Buelens and Van den Broeck, 2007). In line with other public service workers in Italy (Borzaga and Tortia, 2006), SAI employees emphasized their personal values and interests in seeking and retaining the job: “going to work just to make money [. . .] is not really my thing. The idea is that you’re doing something good, this is the good side of having this job” (Ezio). This desire to contribute to society, help others, and “make a difference” is more important than career prospects or financial gratification. Working in an organization whose values aligned with workers’ personal values was recognized as fundamental for personal and professional well-being. Many interviewees explicitly linked their satisfaction to working for a non-profit, which follows shared principles of solidarity and social justice:

I feel like I am on the right side of society in many respects [. . .]. This element was lacking in my previous jobs, I was dissatisfied [. . .] I was bored. Being able to say “I am on the right side of society” pays me back. [. . .] This is a workplace where there is not only . . . the logic of profit. (Dario)

Motivation structures are more varied and pragmatic among Irish workers: while civil servants and volunteers cited a previous interest in migration and social justice, and a sense of duty toward vulnerable people, many staff members remarked how they were doing the job only temporarily, because it suited their family circumstances, they had found no other opportunity locally, or simply because it pays the bills:

[What keeps me in this job is] the paycheck. Yeah. That’s it. It’s a job. It’s probably not going to last forever. I seem to have a different job for each of my children’s birth certificates. (John)

Workers in both countries reported high levels of job satisfaction. This finding is interesting given the many differences in both system design and workers’ daily experiences. Observing how one’s work was improving beneficiaries’ lives is the main source of job satisfaction for both Italian and Irish workers. This sense of achievement constitutes an intrinsic reward that is present even when motivations for taking the job are extrinsic, as in the case of the Irish workers. Job satisfaction is influenced not only by organizational factors but also by individual and societal factors (Lange, 2015). The interaction of these factors in different contexts produces ideas of job satisfaction based on different elements: what an Irish worker sees as a component of their job satisfaction may be irrelevant for an Italian worker. The systems have a different organizational culture and tend to attract workers with different skills, background, and motivations, who will construct their idea of job satisfaction differently. For example, the Italian system’s emphasis on recruiting specific professional figures will attract workers who derive satisfaction from being able to exercise valued high-level professional skills, whereas the same element is less relevant to Irish workers, who do not have to be professionals to work in DP. Similarly, satisfaction may also be linked to different conceptualizations of the system: if Irish workers adopt the institutional logic (Olsen and March, 2004) prescribing that DP only has to provide minimal material assistance, they will use it to define the boundaries and success criteria of their job; satisfaction from being successful at one’s job will thus be based on a much shorter and simpler list compared to an Italian worker.

This finding suggests that the constitutive components of job satisfaction may also change over time. In a for-profit system attracting workers with an externally driven motivation structure (Buelens and Van den Broeck, 2007), but in fact providing public services, an element of intrinsic motivation may intervene, creating a new version of the committed public servant adapted to the neoliberal market (Maron, 2022), who draws satisfaction not only from pay and benefits but from perceiving that their job has a positive social impact. Differences in motivation may be resolved over time as workers adapt to their hybrid environment and thus may not impact policy implementation significantly.

Interconnectedness and support

Implementing asylum policy involves providing many services and coordinating with other public services, organizations, and private citizens. These interactions are experienced differently in the two countries. In Italy, SAI and other public and non-profit actors are highly interconnected, supporting the idea of Italian non-profit organizations as “hyper-embedded” in a close-knit network of public services (Busso, 2018), where differences between state and nonstate actors are blurred and cooperation is an established tradition (Rizza and Lucciarini, 2021). Interconnectedness supports workers in several ways. First, workers who came from other public or non-profit services had a straightforward transition because the same organizational models and processes were used. Second, workers can tap into a wide network of resources, including organizational expertise and personal contacts from previous jobs in similar areas. Finally, future career choices are facilitated, providing the possibility of expanding careers horizontally if not vertically. Interconnectedness can, however, be a double-edged sword:

It is a mammoth bureaucratic system, you have to run everything by eight different people [. . .] if a part slows down even a little bit, everything slows down. (Fabio)

The lack of similar connections is arguably the starkest difference between the Italian and the Irish system. DP staff complained about a consistent lack of support and interaction with other stakeholders, such as HSE (Health Service Executive, the Irish public healthcare system) or IPAS. Issues caused by this lack of communication were previously solved through informal phone calls and personal connections with civil servants and the staff of other centers; however, IPAS recently changed communication procedures by setting up a single email address for all correspondence. Because of this, centers feel more isolated. A related complaint was never being able to interact with the same contact person in public services or local charities, thus unnecessarily complicating the task at hand. Staff members frequently find themselves providing services that state bodies should provide instead. Civil servants reported this disconnection as well: for example, sometimes they are not informed when a new DP center opens in their area, and must rely on word of mouth:

[DP] was small enough that the IPAS team knew the people on the ground, we got to know each other on the phone [. . .] sometimes it’s very difficult to put that into an email, to show the extent of what you’re trying to cope with. [. . .] Now it’s all done through a helpdesk. [. . .]it worked better when we were all able to connect. (Caoimhe)

Regulation

Levels of regulation differ, reflected in the experiences of Italian and Irish workers. SAI rules and guidelines are perceived to be very strict and detailed. Some workers felt this rigidity was limiting and unrealistic: for example, the time limit for beneficiaries’ stay is too short and does not allow them to achieve full autonomy, despite being often extended:

If I were working with a team that blindly applies all guidelines, I’d have already switched jobs by now. All regulations and manuals are too rigid [. . .] I don’t think we need such a high level of control on people. (Alberto)

However, one aspect of this regulatory complexity is unanimously appreciated: the emphasis on teamwork. The SAI manual contains lengthy and elaborate prescriptions about team composition, collective decision-making, and frequency of team meetings. These prescriptions are not seen as an imposition; rather, all interviewees agreed that having a collegial framework and a formal meeting schedule greatly help to give structure to their work, provide an avenue for quick problem-solving, and allow them to feel valued as professionals. SAI represents an example of successful horizontal accountability (Lipsky, 2010), which uses teamwork and mutual support to foster commitment in workers.

Many Irish workers cited the dynamic nature of the job as a positive aspect, saying that every day at work is different and unpredictable. While this “doing a little bit of everything” was generally presented in a positive light, DP staff also reported they have no detailed list of task and responsibilities. Staff also reported receiving little to no training besides standard fire safety and child safety. When asked directly, most workers said they believed existing rules and guidelines are exhaustive enough. However, they also reported having to upskill themselves to face the requirements of the job, or coming up with their own rules, initiatives, and solutions when there is no blueprint. Some interviewees are concerned about the absence of clear disciplinary rules for residents, which adds to their feeling of being left alone to manage a very complex situation. Overall, it appears that while more detailed procedures could solve many of the cited issues, Irish DP workers tend to accept the status quo. This shows how powerful institutional discourses can be in fostering a specific idea of what is acceptable and achievable (Olsen and March, 2004), and how readily workers can adopt neoliberal discourses that ground their attachment to work on ideas of individual action and flexibility rather than collective solidarity and protection (Musílek et al., 2020).

Opinions on non-profit/for-profit dimension

Interviewees in both countries reflected on the public or private management of the system. In SAI centers, such reflections are common, perhaps due to the higher average level of professional expertise. SAI workers are overall happy with the system, but also conscious that the public and non-profit sector is unstable and fragmented, as it is predominantly project-based and depends on precarious and inadequate public funding. This results in understaffing, which in turn makes it difficult to closely follow beneficiaries as the guidelines prescribe; a finding corroborating previous studies conducted among other public service workers in Italy’s fragmented system (Dorigatti et al., 2020). Second, workers feel that their professional role as “social workers” is undervalued in society: it is commonly misinterpreted as “volunteering,” and the responsibilities and professional skills the job entails are often ignored. This negatively impacts wages and job stability. Finally, as is the case in other Italian public service areas (Dorigatti et al., 2020), workers feel that SAI is influenced by political logics. Because migration has been heavily politicized in recent years, when governments and policies change negative consequences follow: “We’re quite confident the project will be renewed for the next three years, because the current city government wants to do it. But then again, we have elections here next year, and if there’s a new mayor, who knows?” (Eva). Workers also perceive that recent political developments are legitimizing racist behavior in local institutions:

I see this in institutions [. . .] The local healthcare branch put the Ukrainian flag on their website when Ukrainians started coming in, they put up a “how to” section . . . When I sent emails about Ukrainians they would immediately get back to me, and in all other cases they wouldn’t. Same issue, same email, different name. (Cecilia)

The staff of Irish DP centers, in contrast, did not fully engage with the theme of private management. The only exception was one offhand comment by a manager: “There’s a lot of people wanting DP to become non-profit. I don’t see how that’s possible, because there’s no business in the country that’s non-profit, because why would you do that?.” The fact that DP is and must be a business is not questioned by staff. This represents another example of institutional context shaping the attitudes and beliefs of workers: in a context where public services are perceived as lacking and institutional discourse is centered on cost-cutting, streamlining, and simplification, workers accept a lean, market-oriented system as appropriate (Olsen and March, 2004). Volunteers and civil servants, conversely, have a very negative view of the fact that DP centers are managed by for-profit entities:

They’re an events company. [. . .] And the other centre is a guy who’s ex-army, his mum is the cleaner in the place, [there’s] a couple of random security people . . . there’s no structure in there. [. . .] it’s just a funny setup, it seems like anyone can just decide to [open a DP centre]. [. . .] There’s no minimum standard, there’s no accountability for people running it, [. . .] they sign a contract and then it’s basically free rein. (Margot)

There is a huge deficit of knowledge about what would be required and what might happen [. . .] How do these people sleep at night? Is that how you want to make your money? (Rita)

This different level of critical reflection on the system between paid DP staff and individuals operating in non-profit organizations reflects not only different levels of education and experience but also the influence of institutional context on organizational discourses and individual opinions: non-profit workers are more likely to problematize a private system that they perceive as inadequate because it lacks the attributes of a non-profit system (Buelens and Van den Broeck, 2007; Venter et al., 2019). Low levels of critical reflection may translate into a higher level of acceptance of the status quo, and subsequently to a lower probability of implementing changes and improvements at the individual and institutional level, even when low levels of regulation leave space for discretion.

Discussion and conclusions

SAI and DP are asylum systems managed in markedly different ways. Interviews show how the non-profit/for-profit dimension of management changes workers’ experiences and perceptions of what is working and what is not. Italy has created a system where a plethora of bodies, manuals, and forms occasionally gets in the way, and workers can feel frustrated by a hyper-inflated, controlling bureaucracy. But SAI also attracts motivated workers who place a premium on organizational values aligning with their personal values of community, service, and solidarity, thus compensating for low wages. SAI also explicitly promotes teamwork and group support, favors full integration with other public services, and ensures a division of labor that allows workers to tackle the many aspects of asylum policy implementation more efficiently. In contrast, a private model appears ill-suited to a complex sector like asylum policy: both DP residents and workers are left to themselves and may not receive the support they need. DP is located within a broader context of marketized and streamlined state services (Murphy and Dukelow, 2016), further compounding system deficits.

The different “institutional templates” (Johnson et al., 2000) of non-profit and for-profit systems and their tangible consequences on how these systems function are especially apparent when considering the broader network of services within which asylum systems need to exist in order to promote the integration of forced migrants. A non-profit system appears significantly better connected to other services typically provided by the state, such as healthcare, education, and social welfare, and thus arguably better equipped to meet its stated goals. By contrast, a privately managed system is more likely to be disconnected from public services, and interactions between the two are often challenging and inadequate. Furthermore, a privately run system driven by a market logic may not have the same level of transparency and normative development as a non-profit system. This leads to unclear responsibilities and tasks for workers, which in turn cause confusion, the overlapping of roles, or neglect of key services due to lack of time and expertise. This malfunctioning private system prompts volunteers to intervene, replacing the state in the provision of services without having the same resources or reach. The stated goals of the asylum system could be pursued more efficiently and effectively by providing services through appropriately trained staff or closer cooperation with public services. Our findings on asylum systems corroborate research about the privatization of public services more broadly, which appears to have a number of negative consequences for workers and service users alike and fares unfavorably compared to a non-profit model (Darling, 2016; Jalili et al., 2024; Mori, 2017; O’Neill et al., 2023).

Both systems have limitations which should be weighed against the benefits. A public system is more complex to establish, as proved by privately run “emergency” centers increasingly becoming the standard; it requires the concerted work of multiple actors and the development of comprehensive norms; it depends on the willingness of public actors, often including civil society, and is therefore potentially more exposed to politically driven motivations. A private system driven by cost-effectiveness considerations ultimately appears to lack norms protecting beneficiaries’ rights, services, worker supports, financial transparency, and connection with other state services, as well as with civil society and communities. Further research could examine more cases to establish if similar mechanisms are at work elsewhere, and to add more nuance to this institutional, context-based approach to the study of asylum policy implementation.

Finally, this investigation illustrates how asylum systems, like all institutions, are the products of their contexts (Pierson and Skocpol, 2002). It is clear from our findings that states follow their administrative traditions in establishing organizational models for their asylum system: Ireland is on a liberal path of streamlining and marketization of state services, whereas Italy continues to opt for the co-optation of the non-profit sector and bureaucratization. The trends we identified among asylum workers are not exclusive to asylum policy, but rather typical of each country’s tradition in managing the provision of public services. However, the different system design does not seem to significantly impact workers’ job satisfaction. This may be explained by the fact that institutions produced by states with different traditions are designed to provide different services and thus will attract workers with a different understanding of their professional identity who measure their well-being differently. In fact, this hints at a two-way relationship between a state as a discursive notion and its institutions as practical emanations of that notion: the establishment of a non-profit or for-profit asylum system is a consequence of how the state views its duty to forced migrants, and more broadly, to vulnerable individuals; and the system’s outcomes reflect this underlying discourse. A non-profit system organized around the principles of holistic action, teamwork, and integration can go far in achieving these goals thanks to its public nature, and it is public precisely because the state is seen as the best conduit to achieve those goals. A private system only offers basic services due to its private nature, and it is private because the state believes its duty toward asylum seekers is exhausted in providing basic services. The recent trend of privatizing asylum systems observed across Western countries can be further analyzed in light of this.

This article adds to the scholarship about asylum systems by bringing in the underexplored perspective of the workers responsible for their daily functioning, a vital component of the system providing unique insights that are not necessarily glimpsed by studying formal policy instruments or migrants’ perspectives. It also addresses the emergent trend of privatization in asylum services to assess whether and how it impacts the system by changing workers’ experiences and perceptions. In doing so, the article contributes an explicitly cross-country comparative framework lacking in previous studies.

Despite these contributions, this article only represents a first step in the analysis of how broader institutional context, formal policies, and the daily practices of stakeholders in their local context interact to produce asylum policy outcomes. Our work has limitations that can be overcome by further research. The comparison, which is currently limited to two countries, can be expanded to other states and systems. Future research can also analyze individual-level elements such as workers’ gender, age, and prior professional history in more depth, to complement our findings with other possible explanatory factors for workers’ motivations, satisfaction, and critical reflection on the system. Given that asylum systems appear to reflect broader administrative traditions in their design, a detailed comparison of workers’ experiences across policy areas in the same country would also complement our analysis. Finally, although our study did not involve migrants, the focus on asylum workers should not divert attention from the fact that asylum policy outcomes directly affect forced migrants’ lived experiences. Future research should investigate the connection between our findings on workers’ perspectives and the experiences of migrants in for-profit or non-profit asylum systems. Bringing together these two complementary perspectives will provide a more well-rounded understanding of the trajectories and results of specific asylum systems.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by the Irish Research Council grant GOIPG/2023/4654 and by the Trinity Research in Social Sciences (TRiSS) Travel Grant 2022/23.

Ethical approval statement

Ethical approval for this research was obtained by the Director of Research, School of Social Sciences and Philosophy, Trinity College Dublin on 20 September 2022.

Informed consent statement

All participants to this research gave written informed consent prior to participating in this research. Informed consent included consent to publication and dissemination of results with non-essential identifying details removed.

ORCID iDs

Claudia Peroni

Daniel Faas

Data availability statement

The datasets generated and analyzed during this research are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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