Editing Corrado Gini

{{Short description|Italian statistician (1884–1965)}}
{{Infobox scientist
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| name              = Corrado Gini
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| image             = Corrado Gini.jpg
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| caption           = Gini {{circa|1945}}
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| birth_place       = [[Motta di Livenza]], [[Veneto]], [[Kingdom of Italy]]
| death_date        = {{Death date and age|1965|03|13|1884|05|23}}
| death_place       = [[Rome]], [[Italy]]
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| citizenship       = [[Italians|Italian]]
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| fields            = {{plainlist|
* [[Statistics]]
* [[Demography]]
* [[Sociology]]}}
| workplaces        = {{plainlist|
* [[University of Cagliari]]
* [[University of Padua]]
* [[Sapienza University of Rome]]}}
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'''Corrado Gini''' (23 May 1884 – 13 March 1965) was an Italian [[statistician]], [[demography|demographer]] and [[sociology|sociologist]] who developed the [[Gini coefficient]], a measure of the [[income inequality]] in a society. Gini was a proponent of [[organicism]] and applied it to nations.<ref name="pp40">Aaron Gillette. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=8Gjq0ZPvIZgC Racial theories in fascist Italy]''. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA. Pp. 40.</ref> Gini was a [[eugenics|eugenicist]], and prior to and during World War II, he was an advocate of [[Italian Fascism]]. Following the war, he founded the [[Italian Unionist Movement]], which advocated for the [[annexation]] 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]], where in addition to law he studied mathematics, economics, and biology.

Gini's scientific work ran in two directions: towards the [[social sciences]] and towards statistics. His interests ranged well beyond the formal aspects of statistics—to the laws that govern biological and [[social phenomenon|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]], 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 [[Gini coefficient]] in the 1912 paper ''Variability and Mutability'' ({{langx|it|Variabilità e mutabilità}}).<ref>Gini, C. (1909). "Concentration and dependency ratios" (in Italian). English translation in ''Rivista di Politica Economica'', '''87''' (1997), 769–789.</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Gini |first=C |title=Variabilità e Mutuabilità. Contributo allo Studio delle Distribuzioni e delle Relazioni Statistiche |publisher=C. Cuppini |year=1912 |location=Bologna}}</ref> Also called the Gini index and the Gini ratio, it is a [[Statistical dispersion#Measures of statistical dispersion|measure of statistical dispersion]] intended to represent the [[income distribution|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 [[University of Padua|Padua]] in 1913.

He founded the statistical journal ''Metron'' in 1920, directing it until his death;  it only accepted articles with practical applications.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://meetings.sis-statistica.org/index.php/ginilegacy/index/about/editorialPolicies|title=Corrado Gini's Biography|publisher=Società Italiana di Statistica (SIS)|access-date=2016-11-05|archive-date=2016-11-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161106061546/http://meetings.sis-statistica.org/index.php/ginilegacy/index/about/editorialPolicies|url-status=dead}}</ref>

He became a professor at the [[Sapienza University of Rome]] 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==
{{Fascism sidebar|intellectuals}}
In 1926, he was appointed President of the [[National Institute of Statistics (Italy)|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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.umass.edu/wsp/resources/tales/gini.html|title=Tales of Statisticians {{!}} Corrado Gini|website=www.umass.edu|access-date=2018-08-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180821093826/https://www.umass.edu/wsp/resources/tales/gini.html|archive-date=2018-08-21|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In 1927 he published a treatise entitled ''The Scientific Basis of Fascism''.<ref>''The Scientific Basis of Fascism,'' [[Political Science Quarterly]] Vol.42, No 1, March 1927 pp. 99-115.</ref>

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  [[Karaite Judaism|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.<ref>Mikhail Kizilov,  [https://books.google.com/books?id=hGILHIgEl7cC&pg=PA281&lpg=PA281 ''The Karaites of Galicia: An Ethnoreligious Minority Among the Ashkenazim, the Turks, and the Slavs, 1772-1945,''] BRILL, 2009 pp.278ff.</ref><ref>Riccardo Calimani, [https://books.google.com/books?id=kMb_CAAAQBAJ&pg=PT583  ''Storia degli ebrei italiani,''] vol.3, Mondadori 2015 p.583.

</ref>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.</ref>
Milestones during the rest of his career include:
* In 1933 – vice president of the International Sociological Institute.
* 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 Sociological Society.
* In 1941 – president of the Italian Statistical Society.
* In 1957 – Gold Medal for outstanding service to the Italian School.
* In 1962 – National Member of the [[Accademia dei Lincei]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Boldrini|first=Marcello|date=1966|title=Corrado Gini|journal=Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (General)|volume=129|issue=1|pages=148–150|jstor=2343927}}</ref>

==Italian Unionist Movement==
{{Main|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 [[Flag of the United States|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]]. 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.<ref name="pp40"/> Gini shared the view held by [[Oswald Spengler]] that populations go through a cycle of birth, growth, and decay.<ref name="pp40"/> Gini claimed that nations at a primitive level have a high [[birth rate]], but, as they evolve, the [[upper class]]es birth rate drops while the [[Working class|lower class]] birth rate, while higher, will inevitably deplete as their stronger members emigrate, die in war, or enter into the upper classes.<ref name="pp40"/> If a nation continues on this path without resistance, Gini claimed the nation would enter a final [[Decadence|decadent]] stage where the nation would degenerate as noted by decreasing birth rate, decreasing cultural output, and the lack of [[Imperialism|imperial]] conquest.<ref name="pp41">Aaron Gillette. ''Racial theories in fascist Italy''. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA. Pp. 41.</ref> At this point, the decadent nation with its aging population can be overrun by a more youthful and vigorous nation.<ref name="pp41"/> Gini's organicist theories of nations and natality are believed to have influenced policies of [[Italian Fascism]].<ref name="pp40"/>

==Honours==
{{unreferenced section|date=February 2013}}
The following honorary degrees were conferred upon him:
* Economics by the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan (1932),
* Sociology by the University of Geneva (1934),
* Sciences by Harvard University (1936),
* Social Sciences by the University of Cordoba, Argentine (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)
* {{cite journal |last1=Gini |first1=Corrado |title=The Scientific Basis of Fascism |journal=Political Science Quarterly |date=March 1927 |volume=42 |issue=1 |pages=99–115 |doi=10.2307/2142862|author-mask=1|jstor=2142862}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120716202225/http://www.metronjournal.it/storia/ginibio.htm Biography Of Corrado Gini at the ''Metron'', the statistics journal he founded].
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040910230448/http://www.eh.net/XIIICongress/Papers/Favero.pdf Paper on "Corrado Gini and Italian Statistics under Fascism" by Giovanni Favero  June 2002]
* [http://www.jehps.net/Mars2005/ForcinaGiorgi.pdf A. Forcina and G. M. Giorgi "Early Gini’s Contributions to Inequality Measurement and Statistical Inference." JEHPS mars 2005]
* [http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/people/gini.gif Another photograph]

{{Authority control}}

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