The Effect of the Italian Unification
on the Comparative Regional Development in Literacy, 1821-1911
Carlo Ciccarelli (Tor Vergata) and Jacob Weisdorf (SDU and CEPR)
Abstract (May 2015)
The impact of the Italian Unification on the comparative regional development in Italy is
subject to intense debate. A key problem for this debate is the lack of regional development
indicators before the time of the Unification. Historical literacy rates are often used in the
absence of more direct indicators, but even literacy information was not systematically
recorded before 1861, which marks the first year of the Unification.
In this study we build a series of long-term regional literacy rates, which dates 40 years back
beyond the time of the Unification. Our methodology relies on the fact that literacy was mainly
achieved during childhood. We use population census data to establish that historical literacy
rates for adults remained surprisingly stable over time. This enables us to backdate agespecific literacy information found in post-1861 census documents as far back as 1821.
Our long-term series of regional literacy rates show that Northern Italy had pulled away from
Central and Southern Italy already by the early 19th century, in the cases of males as well as
females. In spite of this, our international comparison shows that Northern Italy was
performing no better in terms of literacy than the poorest-performing regions in England, the
world’s economic leader at the time.
Our time-series analysis also establishes that literacy grew more in the North over the entire
19th century than in the rest of Italy. However, we document that 1861 marked a breakpoint
in the comparative regional literacy development: while literacy had been largely stagnant in
Central and Southern Italy up until 1861, both regions saw convergence toward the literacy
rate in Northern Italy after unification. The catch-up was particular fast among women, with a
staggering rise in female literacy in the South of over 16% per year in the post-Unification
period.
This had important implications for regional developments of gender inequality. The gender
gap in literacy in Northern Italy had declined over the entire 19th century, a trend that was
unaffected by the Unification. Gender inequality in Central and Southern Italy, by contrast,
began to decline only after the Unification. We attribute the closing of the gender gaps and the
improved literacy performances in Central and Southern Italy after the Unification to the
introduction of the Italian state school system, especially the Casati Law of 1859 and the
Coppino Law of 1877, both of which made primary education compulsory in the Kingdom of
Italy.