Starting from the early 1980s, until then a linguistically and culturally homogeneous society, Italy begun to attract substantial flows of foreign immigrants.[158] The present-day figure of about 4.9 million foreign residents,[159] making up some 8.1% of the total population, include more than half a million children born in Italy to foreign nationals—second generation immigrants, but exclude foreign nationals who have subsequently acquired Italian nationality; this applied to 53,696 people in 2008.[160]