Corrado Gini (23 May 1884 – 13 March 1965) was an Italian

statistician A statistician is a person who works with Theory, theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private sector, private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, a ...

, demographer and sociologist who developed the

Gini coefficient In economics, the Gini coefficient ( ), also known as the Gini index or Gini ratio, is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income distribution, income inequality, the wealth distribution, wealth inequality, or the ...

, a measure of the income inequality in a society. Gini was a proponent of organicism and applied it to nations.Aaron Gillette.
Racial theories in fascist Italy
'. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA. Pp. 40. Gini was a

eugenicist Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetics, genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human Phenotype, phenotypes by ...

, and prior to and during World War II, he was an advocate of

Italian Fascism Italian fascism (), also called classical fascism and Fascism, is the original fascist ideology, which Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini developed in Italy. The ideology of Italian fascism is associated with a series of political parties le ...

. Following the war, he founded the Italian Unionist Movement, which advocated for the

annexation Annexation, in international law, is the forcible acquisition and assertion of legal title over one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. In current international law, it is generally held t ...

of Italy by the United States.

Career

Gini was born on May 23, 1884, in Motta di Livenza, near Treviso, into an old landed family. He entered the Faculty of Law at the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...

, where in addition to law he studied mathematics, economics, and biology. Gini's scientific work ran in two directions: towards the

social sciences Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...

and towards statistics. His interests ranged well beyond the formal aspects of statistics—to the laws that govern biological and social phenomena. His first published work was ''Il sesso dal punto di vista statistico'' (1908). This work is a thorough review of the natal

sex ratio A sex ratio is the ratio of males to females in a population. As explained by Fisher's principle, for evolutionary reasons this is typically about 1:1 in species which reproduce sexually. However, many species deviate from an even sex ratio, ei ...

, looking at past theories and at how new hypothesis fit the statistical data. In particular, it presents evidence that the tendency to produce one or the other sex of child is, to some extent, heritable. He published the

in the 1912 paper ''Variability and Mutability'' (). Also called the Gini index and the Gini ratio, it is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income inequality within a nation or other group. In 1910, he acceded to the Chair of Statistics in the University of Cagliari and then at

Padua Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of 20 ...

in 1913. He founded the international journal of statistics ''Metron'' in 1920, directing it until his death; it only accepted articles with practical applications. In 1920 became honorary member of the Royal Statistical Society. He became a professor at the

Sapienza University of Rome The Sapienza University of Rome (), formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", abbreviated simply as Sapienza ('Wisdom'), is a Public university, public research university located in Rome, Italy. It was founded in 1303 and is ...

in 1925. At the University, he founded a lecture course on sociology, maintaining it until his retirement. He also set up the School of Statistics in 1928, and, in 1936, the Faculty of Statistical, Demographic and Actuarial Sciences.

Under fascism

In 1926, he was appointed President of the Central Institute of Statistics in Rome. This he organised as a single centre for Italian statistical services. He was a close intimate of Mussolini throughout the 20s. He resigned from his position within the institute in 1932. In 1926, he also founded the journal "Italian economic life" (), which was issued until 1943. In 1927 he published a treatise entitled ''The Scientific Basis of Fascism''. In 1929, Gini founded the Italian Committee for the Study of Population Problems (''Comitato italiano per lo studio dei problemi della popolazione'') which, two years later, organised the first Population Congress in Rome. A eugenicist apart from being a demographer, Gini led an expedition to survey Polish populations, among them the Karaites. Gini was throughout the 20s a supporter of fascism, and expressed his hope that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy would emerge as victors in WW2. However, he never supported any measure of exclusion of the Jews. His role in the racial and anti-Jewish policies of the regime are more sinister, according to what is explained in detail in the book ''Scienza e razza nell'Italia fascista'' by Giorgio Israel and Pietro Nastasi published by Il Mulino in Bologna in 1998. Milestones during the rest of his career include: * In 1933 – vice president of the International Institute of Sociology. * In 1934 – president of the Italian Genetics and Eugenics Society. * In 1935 – president of the International Federation of Eugenics Societies in Latin-language Countries. * In 1937 – president of the Italian Society of Sociology. * In 1937 – honorary member of the International Statistical Institute. * In 1937 – founded the journal ''Genus'', which was focused on studying the population issues. * In 1941 and 1949 – president of the Italian Statistical Society. * In 1950 – president of the International Institute of Sociology. * In 1957 – Gold Medal for outstanding service to the Italian School. * In 1962 – National Member of the Accademia dei Lincei.

Italian Unionist Movement

On October 12, 1944, Gini joined with the Calabrian activist Santi Paladino, and fellow-statistician Ugo Damiani to found the Italian Unionist Movement, for which the emblem was the Stars and Stripes, the Italian flag and a world map. According to the three men, the government of the United States should annex all free and democratic nations worldwide, thereby transforming itself into a world government, and allowing Washington, D.C. to maintain Earth in a perpetual condition of

peace Peace is a state of harmony in the absence of hostility and violence, and everything that discusses achieving human welfare through justice and peaceful conditions. In a societal sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (suc ...

. The party existed up to 1948 but had little success and its aims were not supported by the United States.

Organicism and nations

Gini was a proponent of organicism and saw nations as organic in nature. Gini shared the view held by Oswald Spengler that populations go through a cycle of birth, growth, and decay. Gini claimed that nations at a primitive level have a high birth rate, but, as they evolve, the

upper class Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status. Usually, these are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper cla ...

es birth rate drops while the lower class birth rate, while higher, will inevitably deplete as their stronger members emigrate, die in war, or enter into the upper classes. If a nation continues on this path without resistance, Gini claimed the nation would enter a final decadent stage where the nation would degenerate as noted by decreasing birth rate, decreasing cultural output, and the lack of imperial conquest.Aaron Gillette. ''Racial theories in fascist Italy''. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA. Pp. 41. At this point, the decadent nation with its aging population can be overrun by a more youthful and vigorous nation. Gini's organicist theories of nations and natality are believed to have influenced policies of

Honours

The following honorary degrees were conferred upon him: * Economics by the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

(1932), * Sociology by the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public university, public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by French theologian John Calvin as a Theology, theological seminary. It rema ...

(1934), * Sciences by

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

(1936), * Social Sciences by the University of Cordoba,

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

(1963).

Partial bibliography

* ''Il sesso dal punto di vista statistica: le leggi della produzione dei sessi'' (1908) * ''Sulla misura della concentrazione e della variabilità dei caratteri'' (1914) * ''Quelques considérations au sujet de la construction des nombres indices des prix et des questions analogues'' (1924) * ''Memorie di metodologia statistica. Vol.1: Variabilità e Concentrazione'' (1955) * ''Memorie di metodologia statistica. Vol.2: Transvariazione'' (1960) *

References

External links

Biography Of Corrado Gini at the ''Metron'', the statistics journal he founded

Paper on "Corrado Gini and Italian Statistics under Fascism" by Giovanni Favero June 2002

A. Forcina and G. M. Giorgi "Early Gini’s Contributions to Inequality Measurement and Statistical Inference." JEHPS mars 2005

Another photograph
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gini, Corrado 1884 births 1965 deaths People from Motta di Livenza Italian sociologists Italian eugenicists Italian fascists Italian statisticians Italian Unionist Movement politicians Politicians of Veneto University of Bologna alumni Academic staff of the Sapienza University of Rome Academic staff of the University of Cagliari Fellows of the Econometric Society Demographers Academic staff of the University of Padua Members of the Lincean Academy World federalist activists