Italian diaspora

The Italian diaspora is the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy. There are two major Italian diasporas in Italian history. The first diaspora began in 1861 with the Unification of Italy and ended in the 1920s with the rise of the Italian Fascism. The second diaspora started after the end of World War II and roughly concluded in the 1970s. Between the period of 1880 and 1976, the largest voluntary emigration in documented history, with about 13 million Italians leaving the country. By 1978, it was estimated that about 25 million Italians were residing outside of Italy.

The Italian Diaspora, a large-scale migration of Italians away from Italy during the 19th and 20th centuries, occurred in three different waves. The first wave occurred between the unification of Italy in 1861 and 1900, the second wave occurred between 1900 and 1914 during the beginning of World War I, and the third wave occurred following World War II along with Europeans from various countries. Poverty was the primary reason for the diaspora, specifically the lack of land as property became subdivided over generations, especially in the South where conditions were harsh. Secondary reasons for the diaspora include internal political and economic problems, as well as organized crime from economic difficulties in the South. 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 immigrated 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.

The Unification of Italy broke down the feudal land system, which had survived in the south since the Middle Ages, especially where land had been the inalienable property of aristocrats, religious bodies or the king. The breakdown of feudalism, however, and redistribution of land did not necessarily lead to small farmers in the south winding up with land of their own or land they could work and profit from. Many remained landless, and plots grew smaller and smaller and so less and less productive as land was subdivided among heirs.

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