Portuguese emigration after World War II

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. Employment was quite different in France and Germany. In France, 49 percent of the returnees worked in construction and 25 percent in manufacturing; in Germany, 13 percent worked in construction and 60 percent in manufacturing. 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. The most frequent reasons for return were missing the family and native land and concern with the children's education, 35 percent; and health, retirement, and labor accidents, 26 percent. 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. See SECP, Boletim anual 1988: 83. For returns see Silva, Retorno, emigraзгo e desenvolvimento, 49-52; Stahl, Perspectivas da emigrзгo, 17.

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)

	Natural Growth	Effective Growth	Net Migration
1951-60	1,090.8	410.0	-680.8
1961-70	10,720.6	-282.6	-1,355.2
1971-81	838.7	1,284.1	+445.4

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 Estatнstica. 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.” Alfredo M. Pereira, “Trade-Off Between Emigration and Remittances in the Portuguese Economy,” Faculdade de Economia - Universidade Nova de Lisboa Working Paper 129, 1989.

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. A. Sedas Nunes, “Portugal: sociedade dualista em evoluзгo,” Anбlise Social 2: 7/8 (1964), 407-62; Carlos Almeida and Antуnio Barreto, Capitalismo e emigraзгo em Portugal, 3d ed. (Lisbon: Prelo, 1976); Joel Serrгo, A emigraзгo portuguesa: sondagem histуrica, 3d ed. (Lisbon: Livros Horizonte, 1977; Vitorino Magalhгes Godinho, A estrutura da antiga sociedade portuguesa (Lisbon: Arcбdia, 1978). 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. Eduardo S. Ferreira, Origens e formas da emigraзгo (Lisbon: Iniciativas Editoriais, 1976); Josй P. Barosa and Pedro T. Pereira, “Economic Integration and Labour Flows: The European Single Act and Its Consequences”' FE-UNL Working Paper 123, 1988; A. M. Pereira, “Trade-Off Between Emigration and Remittances.” 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. Barosa and Pereira, “Economic Integration and Labour Flows,” 8.

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. Stahl, Perspectivas da emigraзгo; I. J. Seccombe and R. J. Lawless, “Some New Trends in Mediterranean Labour Migration: The Middle East Connection” International Migration 23:1 (1985), 123-48; Barosa and Pereira, “Economic Integration and Labour Flows.”

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.” Barosa and Pereira, “Economic Integration and Labour Flows,” 13. 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.” Amadeu Paiva, Portugal e a Europa. O fim de um ciclo migratуrio (Lisbon: IED-CEDEP, 1985). 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. See the publications by Baganha cited in note I; and Baganha and Joгo Peixoto, “Trends in the `90s: The Portuguese Migratory Experience” in, Immigration in Southern Europe Maria I. Baganha (ed.), Oieras, Celta, 1997:15-40. 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

	Brazil	USA	Canada	Total Overseas	France	Germany	Other Europe	Total Europe	Total	%
1950	14,143	938	-	21,491	319	1	81	401	21,892	1.83
1951	28,104	676	-	33,341	418	2	254	674	34,015	1.98
1952	41,518	582	-	46,544	650	4	209	863	47,407	1.82
1953	32,159	1,455	-	39,026	690	-	246	936	39,962	2.34
1954	29,943	1,918	-	40,234	747	4	205	956	41,190	2.32
1955	18,486	1,328	-	28,690	1,336	-	121	1,457	30,147	4.83
1956	16,814	1,503	1,612	26,072	1,851	6	167	2,024	28,096	7.20
1957	19,931	1,628	4.158	32,150	4,640	5	99	4,744	36,894	l2.86
1958	19,829	1,596	1,619	29,207	6,264	2	l27	6,393	35,600	17.96
1959	16,400	4,569	3,961	29,780	4,838	6	130	4,974	34,754	14.31
1960	12,451	5,679	4,895	28,513	6,434	54	158	6,646	35,159	18.90
1961	16,073	3,370	2,635	27,499	10,492	277	304	11,073	38,572	28.71
1962	13,555	2,425	2,739	24,376	16,798	1,393	435	18,626	43,002	43.31
1963	11,281	2,922	3,424	22,420	29,843	2,118	837	32,798	55,218	59.40
1964	4,929	1,601	4,770	17,232	51,668	4,771	1,905	58,344	75,576	77.20
1965	3,051	1,852	5,197	17,557	60,267	12,197	1,467	73,931	91,488	80.81
1966	2,607	13,357	6,795	33,266	63,611	11,250	3,868	78,729	111,995	70.30
1967	3,271	11,516	6,615	28,584	59,597	4,070	2,461	66,128	94,712	69.82
1968	3,512	10,841	6,833	27,014	58,741	8,435	2,037	69,213	96,227	71.93
1969	2,537	13,111	6,502	27,383	110,614	15,406	2,269	128,289	155,672	82.41
1970	1,669	9,726	6,529	22,659	135,667	22,915	1,964	160,546	183,205	87.63
1971	1,200	8,839	6,983	21,962	110,820	24,273	1,418	136,511	158,473	86.14
1972	1,158	7,574	6,845	20,l22	68,692	24,946	1,785	95,423	115,545	82.59
1973	890	8,160	7,403	22,091	63,942	38,444	5,255	107,641	129,732	82.97
1974	729	9,540	11,650	25,822	37,727	13,352	3,958	55,037	80,859	68.07
1975	1,553	8,975	5,857	19,304	23,436	8,177	1,569	33,182	52,486	63.22
1976	837	7,499	3,585	14,762	17,919	5,913	598	24,430	39,192	62.33
1977	557	6,748	2,280	14,826	13,265	4,835	750	18,850	33,676	55.97
1978	323	8,171	1,871	16,307	7,406	4,509	636	12,551	28,858	43.49
1979	215	8,181	2,805	17,532	5,987	4,400	807	11,194	28,726	38.97
1980	230	4,999	2,334	15,281	5,200	4,000	692	9,892	25,173	39.30
1981	228	4,295	2,196	14,498	8,600	3,100	409	12,109	26,607	45.51
1982	187	1,889	1,484	9,420	17,900	1,900	285	20,085	29,505	68.07
1983	197	2,437	823	6,242	6,300	1,500	166	7,966	14,208	56.07
1984	121	2,651	764	5,747	4,600	1,400	116	6,116	11,863	51.56
1985	136	2,783	791	5,842	4,000	1,600	109	5,709	11,551	49.42
1986	91	2,704	983	5,024	1,800	3,100	280	5,180	10,204	50.76
1987	28	2,643	3,398	7,757	400	3,100	158	3,658	11,415	32.05
1988	21	2,112	5,646	8,934	600	3,600	198	4,398	13,332	32.99

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