Internal migration in Italy is a human migration within the Italian geographical region that occurred for similar reasons to emigration, primarily socioeconomic.[1] Its largest wave consisted of 4 million people moving from Southern Italy to Northern Italy (and mostly to Northern or Central Italian industrial cities like Rome or Milan, etc.), between the 1950s and 1970s.[2]
Early history
The oldest migration goes back to the 11th century when soldiers and settlers from Northern Italy (at the time collectively called "Lombardy"[3]), settled the central and eastern part of Sicily during the Norman conquest of southern Italy. After the marriage between the Norman king Roger I of Sicily with Adelaide del Vasto, member of Aleramici family, many Lombard colonisers left their homeland, in the Aleramici's possessions in Piedmont and Liguria, to settle on the island of Sicily.[4][5] The migration of people from Northern Italy to Sicily continued until the end of the 13th century.[6] In the same period people from Northern Italy also emigrated to Basilicata.[7] It is believed that the population of Northern Italy who immigrated to Sicily during these centuries was altogether about 200,000 people.[8] Their descendants, who are still present in Sicily today, are called Lombards of Sicily. Following these ancient migrations, in some municipalities of Sicily and Basilicata, dialects of northern origin are still spoken today, the Gallo-Italic of Sicily and the Gallo-Italic of Basilicata.
Another important internal migration took place between the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. It was the one that involved the transfer of seasonal migrants from the "irredent" territories, not yet annexed to the mother country (Trentino-Alto Adige and Julian March), to the nearby Kingdom of Italy. Men generally worked as mill workers, moléti (grinders) and charcuterie; women instead worked in the cities or as service personnel in wealthy families. This emigration was usually seasonal (especially for men) and characterized the winter period during which the peasants could not work the land. This migratory context at the end of the 19th century was studied by the Trentino and Giudicarian priest Don Lorenzo Guetti,[13] father of Trentino cooperation, who wrote in one of his articles, "If there were no Italy, we Giudicarians would have to die of hunger".[14]
Modern era
During the Fascist era from the 1920s to the 1940s, limited internal emigration occurred.[2] The regime led by Benito Mussolini, however, was opposed to these migratory movements, so much so that it implemented legislative measures that hindered, but did not stop, these movements.[2] An example was a 1939 law that allowed the transfer to another Italian municipality only if the migrant was in possession of an employment contract from a company based in the destination municipality.[15] At the time, internal migratory flows also involved transfers from the countryside to the cities, movements that are more properly defined as internal "mobility" rather than "emigration" that occurs between one Italian region to another.[2]
With the fall of Fascist regime in 1943, and the end of World War II in 1945, a large internal migratory flow began from one Italian region to another. This internal emigration was sustained and constantly increased by the economic growth that Italy experienced between the 1950s and 1960s.[2] Given that this economic growth mostly concerned Northwest Italy, which was involved in the birth of many industrial activities, migratory phenomena affected the peasants of the Triveneto and southern Italy, who began to move in large numbers.[2] Other areas of northern Italy were also affected by emigration such as the rural areas of Mantua and Cremona. The destinations of these emigrants were mainly Milan, Turin, Varese, Como, Lecco, and Brianza.[15] The rural population of the aforementioned areas began to emigrate to the large industrial centers of the north-west, especially in the so-called "industrial triangle, or the area corresponding to the three-sided polygon with vertices in the cities of Turin, Milan and Genoa.[2][1] Even some cities in central and southern Italy (such as Rome, which was the object of immigration due to employment in the administrative and tertiary sectors) experienced a conspicuous immigration flow.[2] These migratory movements were accompanied by other flows of lesser intensity, such as transfers from the countryside to smaller cities and travel from mountainous areas to the plains.[2]
The main reasons that gave rise to this massive migratory flow were linked to the living conditions in the places of origin of the emigrants (which were very harsh), the absence of stable work,[1][15] the high rate of poverty, the poor fertility of many agricultural areas, the fragmentation of land properties,[20] which characterized southern Italy above all, and the insecurity caused by organized crime.[15] Added to this was the economic gap between northern and southern Italy, which widened during the economic boom; this was a further stimulus for southern Italians to emigrate to the north of the country.[15] The reasons were therefore the same as those that pushed millions of Italians to emigrate abroad.[1]
The peak of internal migratory movements was reached in the mid-1960s,[2] between 1955 and 1963.[1] In the five years from 1958 to 1963, 1.3 million people moved from southern Italy.[1] Registrations at city registry offices in the industrial triangle tripled, from 69,000 new arrivals in 1958 to 183,000 in 1963, and to 200,000 in 1964.[1] Turin, which experienced a conspicuous immigration phenomenon, recorded 64,745 new arrivals in 1960, 84,426 in 1961 and 79,742 in 1962.[1] The migratory flow was so large that the Ferrovie dello Stato set up a special convoy, called the Treno del Sole (Train of the Sun), which departed from Palermo and arrived in Turin after having crossed the entire Italian peninsula.[15]
Then began the slow decline of emigration, with the migratory flows from Veneto which, already at the end of the 1960s, stopped[2] due to the improved living conditions in these places.[1] Migrations from southern Italy, although slowed down, did not end,[2] increasing their percentage compared to total internal migrations; between 1952 and 1957 they represented 17% of the total, and between 1958 and 1963 they represented 30% of the total.[1]
The last peak of arrivals from the south to the north of Italy occurred between 1968 and 1970.[1] In 1969, 60,000 arrivals were recorded in Turin, half of which came from southern Italy, while 70,000 immigrants arrived in Lombardy that same year.[1] In Turin this migratory peak was exacerbated by FIAT, which carried out a recruitment campaign where 15,000 migrants from the south were hired.[1] These numbers gave rise to many problems in the Turin capital, above all, housing.[1] This constant flow of people made Turin's population grow from 719,000 inhabitants in 1951 to 1,168,000 in 1971.[1] After 1970 there was a strong contraction in arrivals, which occurred during the 1973 oil crisis, and many of the migrants returned to their places of origin.[2]
Overall, the Italians who moved from southern to northern Italy amounted to 4 million.[2] The migratory flow from the countryside to the big cities also contracted and then stopped in the 1980s.[2] At the same time, migratory movements towards medium-sized cities and those destined for small-sized villages increased.[2]
In the 1990s, migratory flows from the south to the north of the country restarted with a certain consistency, although not at the same level of the 1960s.[2] The phenomenon was recorded by the Svimez institute (acronym for "Association for the development of industry in the South"). Migratory flows continue to come from the regions of southern Italy, with the main destinations being the north-east of the country and central Italy. The regions most active in receiving internal immigrants are Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, and Umbria.
^These Lombard colonisers were native northern Italians and should not be confused with the Germanic tribe the Lombards, who were referred to as longobardi to distinguish them from the Italians of the region who were known as lombardi.
^Fiorenzo Toso (2008). Le minoranze linguistiche in Italia (in Italian). Il Mulino. p. 137. ISBN978-88-15-12677-1.
^Nicola De Blasi (1994). L'italiano in Basilicata: una storia della lingua dal Medioevo a oggi (in Italian). Il Salice. p. 30.
^McDonald, J. S. (October 1958). "Some Socio-Economic Emigration Differentials in Rural Italy, 1902-1913". Economic Development and Cultural Change. 7 (1): 55–72. doi:10.1086/449779.
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