Why did Italians emigrate at the end of the nineteenth centu

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Italy was suffering from widespread demographic problems. A third of the population was under the age of 15 due to high birth rates,

and a quarter of children born died before their first birthday. This led to a relatively low life expectancy and a youthful nation. This resulted in more people competing for manual jobs especially in the agricultural industry. In the 1870s 60% of the population depended on agriculture as a source of income. Many of these people lived in appalling conditions and had a poor quality of life. ‘Most of the peasants were crushed by poverty and their burden of work.’ There was a lack of hope and very little incentive amongst the peasantry. This negative outlook on life in understandable, especially when considering that 75% of peasants wages were spent on food, clothing and shelter. This consequentially meant that only 25% of their income could be spent on luxurious items, which was very little considering the amount of hard work they endured on a daily basis. These factors really disheartened the peasants and with no immediate improvements on the horizons, many decided to leave and start a new life in a foreign country.

The lack of manufacturing employment was not helped by the fact that many could only fill the criteria of manual labour due to high levels of illiteracy. Two-thirds of the population was illiterate and in some parts of the south the figure was nearly approaching 100%. This meant that illiterate people could only fulfil the criteria to a limited amount of jobs, for example in agriculture. There was high competition in these public sectors, which resulted in mass unemployment. Despite attempts to improve education and literacy amongst the Italian nation on behalf of governments in the 1870-90 period, unemployment could not be tackled in the short term. This was due to the fact that initially the existing adult population would not directly benefit from the improvements in education, however there was optimism for their children and the younger generations. This optimism was unfortunately short lived especially for the lower social classes as educational reforms encountered problems, as there was a lack of resources and teachers. The major problem within the classroom was the fact that most Italians spoke in dialect a

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