Portuguese emigration after World War II

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

aEmignnts 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. France, Office Nationale d'Immigration, quoted by Seruya, “Determinantes e caracterнsticas,” 52; and OECD, SOPEMI Reports, 1985, 1988, and 1990 (Paris: OECD). 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. Caroline Brettell, Men Who Migrate, Women Who Wait: Population and History in a Portuguese Parish (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986). 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. Ibid., 68. 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. The most relevant works are Manuela Silva et al., Retorno, emigraзгo e desenvolvimento regional em Portugal (Lisbon: Instituto de Estudos para o Desenvolvimento, 1984); Eduardo S. Ferreira, Reintegraзгo dos emigrantes portugueses: integraзгo na CEE e desenvolvimento econуmico (Lisbon: CEDEP/AE ISE), 1984; Amadeu Paiva, Portugal e a Europa. O fim de um ciclo migratуrio (Lisbon: IED-CEDEP, 1985); Michel Poinard, “Emigrantes portugueses: o regresso,” Anбlise Social 19:75 (1983), 29-56. 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. After the mid-1980s, the information available points to a decrease in the level of returns. At the end of the decade, returns were between 25,000 and 26,000. 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. Poinard's study, “Emigrantes portugueses: o regresso,” based on 3,792 documents and files on Portuguese processes for aid return presented to French authorities in 1978, gives a slightly different portrait of the migrants returning from France. The mean duration of the stay in France was 9.5 years. 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.

Страницы: 1, 2, 3