There were 4,235,059 foreign citizens residing in Italy on 1 January 2010, equal to 7.0% of the total residents, while on 1 January 2009 they represented 6.5%. During 2009 the number of foreigners increased by 343,764 units (+8.8%), an increase that is still very high even though lower than that of two years previously (494 thousand in 2007 and 459 thousand in 2008, respectively +16.8% and +13.4%), mainly because of lower entries from Romania.
There are 932,675 minors, 22.0% of the total of resident foreigners; around 573 thousand were born in Italy, while the remainder entered our country because of family reunification. The minors born in Italy represent the “second generation”, foreigners because children of foreign parents, but not immigrants.
Around half of the foreign residents (2 million 86 thousand individuals, equal to 49.3% of the total) comes from Eastern European countries: in particular, around a quarter comes from new EU countries (1 million 71 thousand, excluding Cyprus and Malta, among which 888 thousand from Romania alone); another quarter (1 million 15 thousand) is represented by citizens from Eastern European countries that are not part of the EU.