Demographic Dynamics and Emigration
A consequence of changes in economic relations among the territories belonging to the former Italian States, immediately after unification of the country, was the creation of a critical situation in the densely populated regions such as Southern Italy and the Venetian areas, and the resultant need to seek an escape in emigration, first to nearby countries (France, Switzerland, Tunisia), and later, especially during the last twenty years of last century, to the Americas (United States, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil). This exodus, which depopulated entire stretches of countryside, continued, except for the war years, until the early years after the First World War. Between 1875 and 1925 a total of some ten million Italians left the country, and roughly half of these have since returned.

Emigration decreased during the twenty years of Fascism, when it was directed exclusively to Italy's African colonies. After the last war, emigration rose again, mainly to the industrialized countries (Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain, France and Benelux), only to decline once more in the mid-1970s. In this second wave, a total of some 8 million people emigrated, and roughly half have returned. At the same time, especially in the nineteen fifties and sixties, there was a wholesale population movement from the southern and north-eastern regions to the north-west, where industry was actively expanding. It is probable that this large increase in workforce has been one of the basic factors which contributed to the `economic miracle', the great expansion of the Italian economy which, on the threshold of the 1970s, brought the country to the level of a great world industrial power.