Characteristics
Poverty was the main reason for the diaspora. Italy was until the 1950s 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. The Fascist government, in order to colonize Libya and the horn of Africa moved some of the excessive Italian population to those Italian colonies. After World War II the process started again in huge numbers, because of the destruction during the war of Italy and its economy.
In 2011 in the world there are 4,115,235 Italians living outside Italy and approximately 80 million direct descendants of Italians, who emigrated in the last two centuries. They have greatly contributed to the Italophilia in our contemporary world.
Read more about this topic: Italian Diaspora