Portuguese emigration after World War II

Key Migrant Characteristics

An analysis of the economic characteristics of the legal migrants will help complement the characterization so far done. Table 10.4, which summarizes legal migrant characteristics between 1955 and 1988, indicates that of the economically active migrants who left the country legally, 26 percent in 1955-59, 38 percent in the 1960s, and 50 percent in the 1970s were engaged in the secondary economic sector. Equally relevant is the increase in the annual number of departures from this sector. It rose from 5,000 in 1955-59 to 10,600 in 1960-69, clearly pointing to the greater attraction that European labor markets exerted over the urban and industrial sectors.

As noted earlier, inferences from the legal registers on sex-, age-, and marital status-are risky. Nevertheless, Table 10.4 permits two conclusions. First, the flow overseas that was dominant in the 1950s was more male dominated and tended less toward family reunification than the European flow. Second, the European flow experienced a first wave in the 1960s, a flow dominated by isolated departures of single or married males in their prime, followed by a second wave in the 1970s, consisting largely of family reunification flows, as suggested by the growing share of children under 15 years of age and the number of married female migrants.

TABLE 10.4 Characteristics of Legal Migrants, 1955-1988

SOURCE: SECP, Boletim anual, 1980-81,1988.

^a Emignnts aged 10 or older.

French sources confirm this change in composition. Between 1960 and 1971, workers represented 68 percent of the Portuguese arrivals to that country. From 1972 to 1979, on the other hand, they represented only 37 percent, and from 1980 to 1988 just 36 percent. [12] Both Portuguese and receiving country data also indicate that after 1970, a growing number of Portuguese immigrants either decided or were forced to return to Portugal.

Return Migration

The myth of the return is deeply embedded in Portuguese emigrant culture. It plays a role in the decision to leave, and it is an important reason why, before World War II, men migrated while women stayed, even though many men never returned. [13] Portuguese emigration to Europe in the 1960s initially fit this traditional pattern. After a decade, however, family reunification became a new trait of Portuguese emigration because of the proximity of the host societies, new means of transportation, and labor opportunities for women in the receiving areas. [14] Yet even then, the desire to return was not abandoned.

The number of returnees, their sociodemographic characteristics, their social reintegration, and its economic impact are perhaps the most researched topics in recent migration studies. [15] From these studies, it is possible to make several observations. After ten to fourteen years of working permanently abroad, the objectives that led a significant number of men to leave Portugal, and later to call their families to join them, apparently were attained. Various factors, moreover, seem to indicate the culmination of a cycle of family migratory projects. For example, the number of yearly returnees grew: seven thousand in the 1960s, thirteen thousand in the 1970s, and fifty-two thousand in the 1980s. [16] Among the returnees, 25 percent in 1970 and 32 percent in 1980-81 were between the ages of I and 19. And 86 percent of returnees were already married when they first emigrated.

Predictably, returnees were mostly male (71 percent of the total). This was because migratory flows were male-dominated until the 1970s, and because for a significant number of migrants family reunification and second-generation educational prospects in host societies made staying there appear more favorable than returning. [17] Most returnees were originally connected to agriculture in Portugal, and 90 percent returned, if not to agriculture, at least to their communities of birth. More than half were over 45 years old, and one-third were older than 56. Of those who went to France, 56 percent worked in construction and public works.

Returnees followed a dominant economic trajectory. Before emigration, 45 percent worked in agriculture and 18 percent in construction. As emigrants, 37 percent worked in construction and 32 percent in manufacturing. [18] On returning, 38 percent worked in agriculture, 18 percent in construction, and 17 percent in small trades or catering. It is important to note that only 59 percent of returnees opted for an active life, and that the majority of those working in agriculture or small businesses were self employed.

For the majority of these returning migrants, emigration was a success story. [19] A house, major appliances, a car, a small trade or restaurant, the opportunity for wives to stop working, the return to the region of departure, and a varying, but frequently reasonable, level of savings all guaranteed upward mobility.

As far as the Portuguese economy is concerned, however, returnee contributions are debatable. The overwhelming majority of returnees either are illiterate (12 percent), have no formal schooling (24 percent), or have attended only primary school (56 percent). New skills acquired have not been easily transferable; nor are former emigrants interested in taking up the same jobs they had abroad. They have used their savings primarily for consumption rather than productive investment. It is undeniable, however, that they have made a major contribution to regional development, and that with more adequate policies, their contribution could increase.

We have described the main features of the Portuguese emigration and return migration. In the last part of this section, we will try to assess its impact on the Portuguese economy and demography.

In demographic terms, the impact of emigration between 1960 and 1979, the heaviest period, represented 47 to 55 percent of the country’s natural population growth. Yearly migration rates during that period varied from 5.3 to 6.1 migrants per thousand inhabitants, while the annual average number of departures was 82,419. In the same period, returns are estimated to have been between 30,000 and 37,000; Portugal’s annual natural population growth was 95,693. Thus, net migration can be estimated at between 45,400 and 52,400. Based on the 1970 census (total population 8.569 million), the yearly migration rate between 1960 and 1979 must have oscillated between 5.3 and 6.1 migrants per thousand. [20]

For intercensus periods the numbers were as shown in table 10.5. It is important to remark that these figures do not account for total impact, because migration caused a significant part of the country’s demographic potential to go unfulfilled.

TABLE 10.5 Demographic Evolution, 1951-1981 (in thousands)

In economic terms, between 1973 and 1979, emigrant remittances represented 8.22 percent of the gross domestic product; between 1980 and 1989, the number rose to 10 percent. As a percentage of the GDP, remittances varied between 5.6 in 1975 and 12.1 in 1979, according to the Instituto Nacional de Estatística. Considering the relative weight of remittances in relation to the country’s exports, the figures are even more impressive. Remittances increased from 13 percent of the country’s exports in the 1950s to 25 percent in the 1960s and 56 percent in the 1970s.

These crude indicators illustrate the impact of Portuguese emigration on the country’s economy and demography, but they do not tell whether that impact was beneficial. The latest econometric simulations to measure the trade-off between emigration and remittances suggest that “past emigration had positive welfare effects, which means that the positive effects of remittances dominate the negative welfare effects of depopulation. However, the annual growth of domestic production has been slowed down by about half a percentage point.” [21]

Changes in the 1970s

With or without state permission, by the mid-1960s and early 1970s, the Portuguese were leaving the country in increasing numbers. Sociologists and historians working during those years stressed the duality of Portuguese society and the imbalances of the country’s economic structure as the main factors driving a growing number of migrants out of the country. [22] Economists prefer to emphasize pull factors, and they name the wage differential between Portugal and the receiving countries as the main factor driving Portuguese emigration. [23] According to one recent study, changes in the productive structure in the 1960s created high natural rates of unemployment and chronic underemployment in the agricultural and family craft sectors, thereby giving a growing number of Portuguese men in their prime strong reasons to migrate to improve their lives. [24]

The push-pull factors analyzed in these works were obviously important, but for the most part, they ignore the condition that if international labor flows are indeed demand-oriented, the response of each individual does not depend on the evolution of the labor market in the host country alone. Indeed, the evolution of migration after 1974 clearly reflects the impact of other factors, namely, the political sanctions of the recipient nations and the strength of migrant networks active at both ends of the trajectory. Without taking these factors into consideration, how can the extremely low migratory flows of the period be explained?

Economic recession in most of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries after the mid-1970s, and conditions in Portugal in the aftermath of the 1974 Revolution, were aggravated by the forced return of four hundred thousand Portuguese from the former African colonies, along with one hundred thousand troops. Emigration was abruptly halted by the receiving societies in the early 1970s, which aggravated the economic situation. All these factors, plus the legal prohibition of firing and dismissing employees, led the private sector to avoid new permanent labor contracts. This change, in turn, brought about major changes in the national labor market. [25]

Unemployment jumped from 86,000 in 1974 to 222,000 in 1975, and continued to grow. In 1980 the number of unemployed was 340,000, and by 1983, the figure had reached 446,000 thousand, or 10.5 percent of the active population. Furthermore, as economists Jose Barosa and Pedro Pereira note, “[measured] unemployment does not tell the whole story, as a survey of the Ministry of Labor found 95,000 workers in 1983 to be wageless.” [26] As they also point out, the labor market began to show signs of recovery in 1979, after new legislation in October 1977 gave the private sector flexibility to hire workers over a fixed period. Unemployment finally decreased, dropping to 8.5 percent in 1985, to 7 percent in 1987, and to 5.7 percent in 1988. Even today, an increasing number of the new jobs are still based on short-term contracts.

As noted earlier, Portuguese migratory flows to Europe peaked in 1970 and tended to decrease thereafter, but it was only after the oil crisis 1973-74 that great and sudden reductions were observed. The drop in migrant workers was even greater, at least until 1986. For France, the data indicate that workers dominated the migratory flow to that country until 1971. Between 1972 and 1977, their relative share fell but remained significant. From 1978 to 1985, the flow was overwhelmingly composed of family members. For 1987-89, the three last years for which information is available, workers were dominant, although less than before; they represented 74 percent of the 17,000 immigrants arriving in France.

Deteriorating economic conditions and mass return migration from the former colonies undoubtedly increased migratory pressure in this period; annual average departures, however, fell from 122,000 per year between 1968 and 1975 to 22,000 per year between 1976 and 1988. Economic factors alone cannot explain the contraction in flows in the latter period. Restrictive migratory policies in the traditional recipient countries and the lack of sizable migratory networks functioning in other destinations left potential migrants temporarily without alternatives. Portuguese scholars wrote the obituary for Portuguese emigration to Europe in 1985 at an international meeting called “Portugal and Europe: The End of a Migratory Cycle.” [27] It was too soon, however. Indeed, Portuguese emigration to Europe is, once again, a significant phenomenon. In fact, a new European migratory cycle, this time mainly directed to Switzerland, took off during the 80’s. Just between 1986 and 1993 more than 117,000 Portuguese permanent immigrants entered that country. [28] It should come as no surprise if in some years’ time, we see the Portuguese landscape enriched with a new set of houses, perhaps labeled Swiss houses. When they appear, they will once again give evidence of Portugal’s most constant modern historical phenomenon: emigration.

TABLE 10.6 Portuguese Emigration by Destination, 1950-1988

[1] The following discussion draws heavily on four publications by Maria I. B. Baganha: “Portuguese Emigration: Current Characteristics and Trends” (Portuguese Report to COST A2 conference “Migration: Europe’s Integration and the Labor Force;’ Leuven, 1991); “As correntes emigratórias portuguesas no século XX e o seu impacto na economia nacional” in Análise Social , 128 (39), 1994: 959-980; “Principais características e tendências da emigração portuguesa” in Estruturas sociais e desenvolvimento: actas do II Congresso Português de Sociologia (Lisbon: Fragmentos, 1994), 819-35; “The Market, the State, and the Migrants: Portuguese Emigration Under the Corporative Regime” (Paper presented to the ESF Conference “Migration and Development,” Crete, 1994).

[2] France, Office Nationale d’Immigration (ONI) for the given years, in M. L. Marinho Antunes, “A emigração portuguesa desde 1950: dados e comentários,” in Cadernos GIS 7 (Lisbon: GIS, 1973),73,109.

[3] See Luís Miguel Seruya, “Determinantes e características da emigração portuguesa, 1960-1979,” in Perspectivas da emigração portuguesa para a CEE, 1980-1990 , ed. Heinz-Michael Stahl et al. (Lisbon: Moraes Editores/I.E.D., 1982), 37-64; Mary M. Kritz, Charles B. Keely, and Silvano M. Tomasi, eds., Global Trends in Migration: Theory and Research on International Population Movement , 3d ed. (Staten Island, N. Y.: Center for Migration Studies, 1983); W. R. Bohning, Studies in International Labour Migration (London: Macmillan, 1984); Jorge P. Branco, A estrutura da comunidade portuguesa em França (Porto: Secretaria de Estado das Comunidades Portuguesas/Centro de Estudos, 1986).

[4] In the early 1980s, for example, the portion of unskilled workers was 45 percent among the Portuguese immigrant labor force in France, similar to other foreign groups but much higher than among natives. The share of unskilled laborers in the French active population was 29 percent. Branco, A estrutura, 70-71.

[5] 5. F. G. Cassola Ribeiro, Emigração portuguesa. Aspectos relevantes relativos às políticas adoptadas no domínio da emigração portuguesa, desde a última guerra mundial. Contribuição para o seu estudo (Porto: Secretaria de Estado das Comunidades Portuguesas/Centro de Estudos, 1986), 41-42.

[6] Proposta de lei sobre política de emigração, in Actas da Câmara Corporativa 142 (February 23, 1973). See also Ribeiro, Emigração portuguesa , 95-110.

[7] The figure does not include the 105,000 special legalizations performed by the Emigration Bureau between 1963 and 1969. See Antunes, “A emigração portuguesa,” 13-15.

[8] The estimate includes 975,000 arrivals to France and 212,000 arrivals to Germany, respectively.

[9] Some 777,000 arrivals to France and Germany are not accounted for in the Portuguese official statistics. More specifically, comparing the French and Portuguese sources indicates that for the period 1960-69, 48 percent of emigration to France went unregistered by Portuguese sources, and 81 percent for 1970-79. For Germany, the Portuguese migratory flow is unregistered by 27 percent for 1962-69 and by 42 percent in 1970-79 (see Table 10.6). Previous works considered only illegal emigration to France. The totals are therefore different from the ones presented in this paper.


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