Italians, foreigners, and immigrants: Target populations in the study of integration processes at the 2011 Census

For some decades now, Italy has become a country of immigration with a growing and increasingly articulated need to know this phenom-enon. The population with migration background has become more complex, with an increasing share of new Italians and descendants of immigrants. Understanding the different demographic components of which the population residing in the country is composed contributes to satisfying the need for knowledge essential for targeted and effective planning of policies for inclusion and social cohesion. The article defines the constituent components of the population usually resident in Italy in 2011 through the combined use of information on the place of birth of the parents and the country of birth and citizenship of individuals recorded at the census. We also tried to verify whether the introduction of the new questions of the 2011 Census questionnaire, as recommended by international guidelines, allowed to endorse the information base and to identify new categories of interest.