Portuguese MigrationPortugal of Immigrants and Portugal of Emigrants

Portugal of Immigrants

The Official Numbers

Country

Total foreigncitizens, 000s

% of total population 

% of total popfrom EU 27countries

% of total popfrom outsidethe EU

Median age,Nationals

Median age,foreigncitizens

Portugal

443.10 4.2 0.8 3.4 40.9 34.0

Source: EUROSTAT 2009

Immigrants resident in Portugal, 1980-2005

Source: Portuguese Presidency

• It is estimated that, the number of immigrants in Portugal, about 55% originates in the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), 28% in EU countries and 11% in countries of South America. Immigration from Asian countries and countries from European Community has not grown significantly.

• The regional distribution shows that the highest concentration is in Lisbon metropolitan area and in major coastal urban centers. It is in the districts of Lisbon (52%), Faro (14%) and Setúbal (11%) that lies the vast majority of the foreign population.

Immigrants by Age Groups in Portugal, 2004

Source: Portuguese Presidency

• According to a study published by Eurostat, Portugal's position lies between the EU countries with the lowest weight of foreign workers in the total employed population: 3.6% to an EU average of 6, 8%. The same can be said about the weight of active immigrants unemployed in the total of unemployed people in each country: 5.4% in Portugal to 11.5% in European average.

• In the overwhelming majority of the 27 European Union countries, the foreign population tends to represent a higher proportion in employment, revealing a more vulnerable group in comparison with nationals. However, the differential between each of these is relatively low in the case of Portugal and Spain.

• Portugal is among the European that has the highest relative proportion of immigrants with low skills (less than or equal to 9th grade) along side with Luxembourg, France and the Netherlands.

• However, Portugal and Spain are the countries with the greatest similarity between the skills of national active people and the immigrants in the age group 25 to 39 years.

“We love immigrants but we don’t pay them as much as nationals”

Source: Portuguese Presidency

Source: SEF Portugal

“When The Meninas Came To Town”

Source: TIME Magazine, October 2003

• “Bragança was just an ancient, remote Portuguese outpost. Then the Brazilian prostitutes moved in — and the wives started fighting back”

• Bragança's meninas brasileiras, or Brazilian girls, are part of the estimated $50 billion global sex trade that profits from the hundreds of thousands of women transported across national borders by human traffickers — often through coercion, sometimes willingly — to be sold or rented on the other side. A tiny fraction have found their way to Bragança, a town of 27,600 tucked into the corner of Portugal's isolated Trás-os-Montes (beyond the mountains) region.

• To explain the hold these Brazilian women have over their husbands, the wives tell themselves stories, accusing the prostitutes of using drugs and even witchcraft to seduce the men.

Portugal of Emigrants

• Emigration on a massive scale began in the second half of the nineteenth century and continued into the 1980s. Between 1886 and 1966, Portugal lost an estimated 2.6 million people to emigration, more than any West European country except Ireland.

• The main motive for emigration, at least in modern times, was economic. Portugal was long among the poorest countries in Europe. With the countryside able to support only a portion of farmers' offspring and few opportunities in the manufacturing sector, many Portuguese had to go abroad to find work. In northern Portugal, for example, many young men emigrated because the land was divided into "handkerchief-sized" plots. In some periods, Portuguese emigrated to avoid military service. Thus, emigration increased during World War I and during the 1960s and early 1970s, when Portugal waged a series of wars in an attempt to retain its African colonies.

• For centuries it was mainly men who emigrated. Around the turn of the century, about 80 percent of emigrants were male. Even in the 1980s, male emigrants outnumbered female emigrants two to one. Portuguese males traditionally emigrated for several years while women and children remained behind.

Source: U.S. Library of Congress

The arrival of Portuguese immigrants to Paris d'Austerlitz station in 1965

• The social effects resulting from this extensive and generally male emigration included an aging population, a disproportionate number of women, and a slower rate of population growth.

• Although emigration brought with it untold human suffering, it had positive effects, as well. The women who stayed behind became more independent as they managed the family farm and fended for themselves.

• Emigrants abroad absorbed the more open and pluralistic mores of more advanced countries; they also learned about independent labor unions and extensive social welfare programs.

• The money that emigrants sent back to Portugal from their job earnings abroad became crucial for the functioning of the Portuguese economy. Quite a number of the Portuguese who had done well abroad eventually returned and built houses that were considerably better than the ones they had left behind years earlier.

The countries with more Portuguese immigrants 2000-2008

Source: Portuguese Emigration Observatory

• Recent research by the economist Álvaro Santos Pereira says that around 6.5% of the 10 million population have left the country between 1998 and 2008 – a number that could be even higher in the next census in 2011. What is different from the previous wave of migration in the 1960s is that these new emigrants are most likely young, highly skilled, and choose new countries like Spain and the UK. A 2006 report by the World Bank warned that Portugal was suffering from serious brain drain, with 13% of graduates emigrating.

Obrigad@!