The Italian diaspora (Italian: emigrazione italiana, pronounced [emiɡratˈtsjoːne itaˈljaːna]) is the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy.
There were two major Italian diasporas in Italian history. The first diaspora began around 1880, two decades after the Unification of Italy, and ended in the 1920s to the early 1940s with the rise of Fascist Italy. Poverty was the main reason for emigration, specifically the lack of land as mezzadria sharecropping flourished in Italy, especially in the South, and property became subdivided over generations. Especially in Southern Italy, conditions were harsh. From the 1860s to the 1950s, Italy was still a largely rural society with many small towns and cities having almost no modern industry and in which land management practices, especially in the South and the Northeast, did not easily convince farmers to stay on the land and to work the soil. Another factor was related to the overpopulation of Italy as a result of the improvements in socioeconomic conditions after Unification. That created a demographic boom and forced the new generations to emigrate en masse in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, mostly to the Americas. The new migration of capital created millions of unskilled jobs around the world and was responsible for the simultaneous mass migration of Italians searching for "bread and work" (Italian: pane e lavoro, pronounced [ˈpaːne e llaˈvoːro]).
