Thursday, October 11

Italy has Most Migrants of Industrialized Countries in Last 150 Years

The ANNOTICO Report

 

While 28 million Italians have left Italy since 1861, more than 3.5 million Italians live abroad today.


In addition, some 60-70 million people of Italian origin and with connections to the country live in different parts of the world.


The majority of emigrants don’t
stray too far from home. Nearly 60% of Italians living abroad live in Europe, although just over a third have settled in the Americas. The most popular destination is Germany, where 16.2% of Italy’s emigrants live. Argentina is next, home to 14.1% of Italian ex-pats, followed by Switzerland with 13.9%.

 


Millions of Italians Living Abroad


Report reveals about 28 million have left country since 1861

 

Tandem

Corriere Canadese

Canada's Cosmopolitan News Paper

Oct 14,2007-Oct 21,2007


More people have emigrated from Italy than any other industrialized country over the last 150 years, creating a vast population of Italians scattered around the world, according to a report published on Thursday.


The
‘Italians in the World Report 200,’ established by the Catholic immigration organization, Migrantes, notes that 28 million Italians have left the country since 1861, and more than 3.5 million Italians live abroad today.


In addition, some 60-70 million people of Italian origin and with connections to the country live in different parts of the world.


The report, which looked at data from several sources, found that the majority of emigrants don’t
stray too far from home. Nearly 60% of Italians living abroad live in Europe, although just over a third have settled in the Americas. The most popular destination is Germany, where 16.2% of Italy’s emigrants live. Argentina is next, home to 14.1% of Italian ex-pats, followed by Switzerland with 13.9%.


Over half of Italian emigrants are unmarried and a comparatively high number have kids. Eighteen per cent of the Italian population resident abroad is under the age of 18.


The same percentage, 18, is over 65, with 410,000 Italians collecting a pension abroad, totalling 1.184 million euros. Women account for 47% of Italians abroad around the world, although this percentage is higher in the Americas, where the number of women surpasses the number of men. In keeping with a decades-old pattern, the majority of emigrants are from Italy’s
poorer, southern regions, where jobs are harder to come by. Of the 3.5 million Italian foreign residents, 2 million are from southern Italy: 600,000 are from Sicily, 400,000 from Calabria and more than 300,000 from Puglia. A million foreign residents are from northern Italy and the remaining 500,000 are from the central regions. But while emigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries were often from the working classes in search of blue-collar jobs, that is no longer the case today.

 

In fact, most Italians moving abroad are either professionals or aspiring professionals, and an above-average number of Italians — nearly 45,000 — attend university abroad. Germany is the most popular destination, followed by Austria, Britain, France and Switzerland.

This is only the second edition of the Migrantes report, which was set up last year, in the wake of the 2006 elections, during which Italians living abroad were allowed to vote for the first time. The amendment to the Italian constitution that gave Italian residents abroad the vote was approved in 2000, with the support of both political blocs.


Laws implementing the change were approved a year later under the Silvio Berlusconi government.


The vote of Italians abroad turned out to be crucial in the April 2006 general election, where Berlusconi’s
centre-right coalition appeared to have won control of the Senate until the foreign votes were counted.


Although Italians abroad don’t
pay taxes, the money they send home is thought to generate indirect earnings of around 100 billion Euros each year.

 

 

The ANNOTICO Reports Can be Viewed (and are Archived) on:

Italia USA: http://www.ItaliaUSA.com [Formerly Italy at St Louis] (7 years)

Italia Mia: http://www.ItaliaMia.com (3 years)

Annotico Email: annotico@earthlink.net