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rfmcdonaldIf you go to Wikpedia's page on the demographics of Portugal, you'll see this image prominently featured. For those of you uninterested in going to Wikipedia, that image is a graphical representation of the evolution of the Portuguese population since 1960s. The numbers of dips and valleys is remarkable: Portugal's population reached nine million in 1964, dipped sharply to a nadir of less than 8.7 million in 1970, shot up to ten million by 1984 before shrinking by another one hundred thousand people by 1991, finally resuming a slow growth path that has taken the Portuguese population almost to 10.1 million.
Why? Mass death wasn't the cause of these occasional shrinkages, while Portugal's fertility rate--though below replacement levels,--has never been that low. Emigration, rather, si the result. leaving the country has long been a profitably strategy for Portuguese hoping to improve their standard of living and future prospects, as Portugal's Library of Congress study notes.
As Mario da Queiroz wrote back in July, this poverty--along with the repessive Salazar regime and the pointless colonial wars in Africa, ended up producing a population of five million Portuguese living in other countries around the world. This tradition of emigration has slowed down, but it's interesting to note that starting just before Portugal joined the then-European Community in 1986 and cotninuing until the early 1990s a second wave of Portuguese emigration, amounting perhaps to several percent of the Portuguese population, took off. Another wave of emigration may yet be beginning, since (as da Queiroz observes) Portugal's relatively low levels of productivity relative to the new central European states, China, and India leaves its economy quite vulnerable. Portugal has experienced a relative decline of late, its GDP per capita having been recently surpassed by the Czech Republic and Slovenia. Unlike those two countries, which have become more lands of immigration than emigration, Portugal is still early. There's no reason why Portugal can't be a land of multiple immigrations and emigrations, with new workers coming from eastern Europe and Latin America to replace native-born Portuguese who've left for points elsewhere in Europe. Compare this trend to the strategy, of Poles, Lithuanians and Latvians, of emigrating to the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Why? Mass death wasn't the cause of these occasional shrinkages, while Portugal's fertility rate--though below replacement levels,--has never been that low. Emigration, rather, si the result. leaving the country has long been a profitably strategy for Portuguese hoping to improve their standard of living and future prospects, as Portugal's Library of Congress study notes.
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. Emigration remained high until 1973 and the first oil shock that slowed the economies of West European nations and reduced employment opportunities for Portuguese workers. Since then, emigration has been moderate, ranging between 12,000 and 17,000 a year in the 1980s, a fraction of the emigration that occurred during the 1960s and early 1970s.
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.
As Mario da Queiroz wrote back in July, this poverty--along with the repessive Salazar regime and the pointless colonial wars in Africa, ended up producing a population of five million Portuguese living in other countries around the world. This tradition of emigration has slowed down, but it's interesting to note that starting just before Portugal joined the then-European Community in 1986 and cotninuing until the early 1990s a second wave of Portuguese emigration, amounting perhaps to several percent of the Portuguese population, took off. Another wave of emigration may yet be beginning, since (as da Queiroz observes) Portugal's relatively low levels of productivity relative to the new central European states, China, and India leaves its economy quite vulnerable. Portugal has experienced a relative decline of late, its GDP per capita having been recently surpassed by the Czech Republic and Slovenia. Unlike those two countries, which have become more lands of immigration than emigration, Portugal is still early. There's no reason why Portugal can't be a land of multiple immigrations and emigrations, with new workers coming from eastern Europe and Latin America to replace native-born Portuguese who've left for points elsewhere in Europe. Compare this trend to the strategy, of Poles, Lithuanians and Latvians, of emigrating to the United Kingdom and Ireland.
