Italian diaspora

The Italian diaspora is the large-scale migration of Italians away from Italy in the period between the unification of Italy in 1861 and the rise of Italian Fascism during the 1920s, as well as one last wave can be observed after the end of World War II (or the people who participated in those migrations).

Overview

Poverty was the main reason for the diaspora. Italy was until the 1860s a partially rural society where land management practices, especially in the South and North-East, did not easily convince farmers to stay on the land and work the soil. Another characteristic was related to the overpopulation of southern Italy after the improvements of the socio-economic conditions, following the unification process. Indeed, southern Italian families after 1861 started to have access (for the first time) to hospitals, improved hygienic conditions and normal food supply. This created a demographic boom and forced the new generations to emigrate en masse at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, mostly to the Americas. Between 1861 and 1985, 29,036,000 Italians emigrated to other countries; of whom 16 million (55 percent) arrived before the outbreak of WWI. About 10,275,000 returned to Italy (35 percent) while 18,761,000 permanently settled abroad (65 percent). In 2011 in the world there were 4,115,235 Italian citizens living outside Italy and several tens of millions of descendants of Italians, who emigrated in the last two centuries.