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The North-South Divide in Italy (commonly referred to as the Southern Question) is the large economic and political divide between Northern and Southern Italy. While regional economic divides are common in many countries, "Italy’s case is peculiar because of its longevity," says economic historian Gianni Toniolo. Italy suffers from the largest geographical divide in the European Union. The topic of the Southern Question has been subject to large amounts of scholarship, in both English and Italian.

Modern economic divide

From the years 2008-2013, Southern Italy's economy contracted by 13% and Northern Italy's economy contracted by 7% — Southern Italy's economy contracted by nearly twice as much.

In 2015, Southern Italy's employment was lower than that of any country in the European Union; and Southern Italy has one of the lowest youth employment rates in all of Europe. The graduate employment rates of Southern Italy are the worst in the European Union. Around 2013, women in North Italy had an employment rate of 56% and women in South Italy had an employment rate of roughly 30%; this shows that a large portion of females do not participate in the Italian labour market, especially the South. The unemployment rate in the South is four times higher than that of the North and the Centre.

Map of Italian regions by GDP per capita in euros (2015).

The GDP per capita divide is increasing between North and the South. In Italy, the regions with the lowest GDP per capita are all Southern. South Italy has roughly 65% of the GDP per capita of the North.

The frequency of poor families is six times higher in the South than in the North. Since the 1990s, inequality has increased between the South and rest of Italy. Income poverty rates in the South are significantly higher in the South: for the whole of Italy from 2000-2006 it was at 13%; in the North it is from 3.6% to 4.8%; in the Centre it is from 4.7% to 7%; and in the South it ranges from 28-29%. For the whole country, the rate of families living below the poverty line is 10.2%; however, in the North this rate is 4.4% and in the South the rate is 20.6%. In the North, the median income a month is around 8,000 euros, while in the South it is around 5,000 euros a month. Around one in four families in the South are estimated to be on or below the poverty line.

The divide in history

At the time of unification, Italy was divided into eight separate states, which each developed cultural and institutional differences. These differences also included economic differences. At the time of unification, Italy generally lagged behind the rest of Western Europe in terms of economic progress, and Southern Italy lagged behind the rest of Italy.

Education and literacy

Not long before unification, the literacy rates of the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia were both roughly 42%; in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, however, the literacy rate was 14.4%. The entirety of Italy had a literacy rate of 27%. The cause of such large disparities in literacy rates, which took almost 100 years to disappear, is the existence of large disparities in school enrollment rates across different regions. At the time of unification, primary school enrollment rates were lower in the Southern regions, while some Northern regions had achieved a 100% enrollment rate; for instance, Piedmont had a primary school enrollment rate of 100%, while Sicily had an enrollment rate of less than 1 in 10. By 1901, the gap between Piedmont and Sicily was still over 50 percentage points; at this time, Calabria had the lowest enrollment rate, at 38%. By 1981, all of the regions had reached a primary school enrollment rate of exactly, or close to, 100%. In 1881, spending on education was significantly higher in the North than in the South. This suggests that spending on education was much more of a priority in the North than in the South.

Income and GDP

It has been estimated that in 1871 the GDP per capita of the entire South was roughly 10% lower than the national average, with large regional variance within the South itself. In 1871, the North-West, the richest region of Italy, had a 25% higher GDP per capita than the poorest region, the South — 2,000 euros per person a year in the North-West and 1,600 euros per person a year in the South.

In the early stages of the Italian Republic, the per capita income was about 15% higher in the North than in the South. After World War II, the North-Western regions had a GDP per capita that was 50% higher than the national average. The South fell behind the rest of the country, with a GDP per capita less than one half the GDP per capita of the Central and Northern regions. In the South, the GDP per capita was 3,080 euros a year, while the North-West had a GDP per capita of 7,335 euros a year. This data shows that while the North-West was modernizing and industrializing, the South remained still; one example of this is how the share of agricultural labour from 1911 to 1951 in Southern Italy remained at 60%, while in the North-West it fell from 47% to 28%.

Life expectancy

From the unification to about 1960, Northerners generally had a longer life expectancy than Southerners. Then, after the 1960s, the gap started to widen again, with the South having a lower life expectancy, once again. After World War II, the spread of antibiotics throughout the country and the demographic structure of Italy led to decrease in the life expectancy gap. The South had a younger population than the North, who were more susceptible to chronic and degenerative diseases of inflammatory nature rather than bacterial diseases; the South, which had age groups affected groups more susceptible to bacterial diseases, thus benefited more from the spread of antibiotics than the North. In short, the closing of the life expectancy gap between the North and South following World War II can be attributed to the spread of antibiotics, which benefited the South more than the North.

Before unification

From the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, Italy was at the forefront of economic progress and technological development: Venice and Genoa dominated trade in the Mediterranean Sea, while Milan and Florence dominated manufacturing; and many smaller Italian towns prospered as well. The prosperity was made possible by improvements in agricultural, which led to agricultural surpluses, which in turn allowed the population to increase as early as the eleventh century; the favourable geographical positions of the towns also allowed for prosperity. However, there was a noticeable difference between the Southern and Northern parts of peninsula at this time. The minor growth of Southern towns led to the agricultural specialization of sheep farming, cultivation of cereals and flax, and the breeding of silkworms — all with the aim of exporting to the North and center of Italy.

During the seventeenth century, the cultivation of the mulberry tree and the breeding of silkworms had greatly expanded in the countryside of Northern and central Italy; the process of throwing and spinning silk took place in the countryside and certain towns. Northern Italy's commercial ties were kept alive thanks to silk production, despite the economic depression Italy was experiencing at the time. However, Southern Italy failed to keep up with the North in the development of raw silk trade.

In the Po plain and Lombardy, a large number of new crops were introduced; but in the South, there was an existing cereal monoculture, which was only partially complimented by the production of olive oil and the introduction of some citrus fruits that were grown in coastal areas. Also in the South, the breeding of silkworms and cultivation mulberry bushes became less and less common, except in Calabria.