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Population and Economy of Calabria

As in many other regions, in Calabria there is an increasing trend towards concentration of the population in the larger towns, particularly the coastal areas, to the detriment of the inland rural areas where depopulation is linked to poor prospects in a backward economy. Large-scale emigration abroad as well as to Northern Italy, which began to diminish only in the nineteen seventies, has had a lasting effect on the demographic situation in the region. Over the past century, nearly a million people have left Calabria, though many are now returning.

There is no single Calabrian dialect; of the three sub-dialects, each is fairly distinctive of its own province. Several linguistic enclaves include the Albanian (especially in the provinces of Cosenza and Catanzaro), and Franco-Provençal languages still spoken in Guardia Piemontese (Cosenza) as well as Greek in the Bova area (Reggio Calabria).

The standard of living is much lower than the national average, as can be deduced from the fact that the pro capite income is the lowest of any region.

There are various reasons for this, including the morphology of the region, which has never facilitated communications, consequently increasing its isolation from the rest of Italy, to which historical factors, including the economic policy of exploitation carried out under the various rulers of Southern Italy, have also contributed.

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