The document is based on data collected by the Emigration
Observatory, a research centre from Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa,
with the institutions responsible for immigration statistics.
The 2021 Emigration Report indicates that, in that year,
around 60,000 Portuguese emigrated, 15 thousand more than in 2020, the year in
which the lowest number of departures in 20 years was recorded, partly due to
the impact of the Covid pandemic.
The document states that, between 2019 and 2020, “emigration
had a drop of around 44%, as a result of the combined effects of the pandemic
crisis and Brexit [the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union]”.
“The lockdown policies posed obstacles to mobility and
produced a global economic crisis of major proportions that explain the abrupt
halt in international migrations”, write the authors.
In 2021, half of the Portuguese who did so in 2013
emigrated. With the exception of 2020, only in 2003 were such low values
recorded. With a peak in 2013, since that year there has been a downward trend
in emigration.
In 2021, migration began “a remarkable recovery”, having
grown, in Portugal, by around 33% compared to 2020.
Even so, “they have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels
but are, once again, on a growth trajectory”.
The authors of the report consider that “it is still too
early to know whether this growth will be sustainable or whether emigration
will stabilize at a lower level than what was envisaged before the pandemic”,
leaning more towards the latter hypothesis, “given the prolonged effects of
Brexit”.
“Contrary to what happened with the pandemic, the effects of
the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union are prolonged over time,
making it more difficult for entry to what was the main destination for Portuguese
emigration – at least for the entry of less qualified migrants” , it is
stressed.
Citing data made available by the United Nations in 2022,
the exhibition points to 2,631,559 Portuguese emigrants - people born in
Portugal living abroad, who represented, in 2019, about 26% of the resident
population in the country, being the eighth country in the world with more
emigrants.
Worldwide, in the same year, there were more than 247
million international migrants, i.e. 3.4% of the world's population.
In 2021, of the 23 destination countries with high flows of
Portuguese emigration, more than half (14) were European.
The destinations where more than 5,000 Portuguese entered in
the last year, for which there is statistical information, are all European.
The United Kingdom led the destinations of Portuguese
emigrants (12,000 entries), followed by Spain (8,000), Switzerland (8,000),
France (6,000) and Germany (6,000).
In the year under review, the number of Portuguese emigrants
in the United Kingdom totalled 156,295, 5.7% less than in 2020, the majority
(53.1%) being women and only 2.5% over 65 years old.
This indicator makes the United Kingdom the second country,
after Ireland, with a younger Portuguese emigrant community.
The Portuguese represented 1.6% of all those born abroad
residing in the United Kingdom, the fourth in the world where the most
Portuguese emigrants reside.
Outside Europe, the main destination countries for
Portuguese emigration are part of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries
(CPLP): Angola (1,708 in 2019) and Mozambique (1,000 in 2016, the last year for
which data are available).
There was a “slight increase” in entries in all countries
analyzed, with the exception of Australia (48.7% less) and Macau (73.1% less).
Men emigrate more than women and, in terms of age group,
this movement is essentially made up of young people.
France continues to be the country in the world with the
highest number of residents born in Portugal, resulting mainly from the great
wave of emigration in the 1960s/70s, with 598,000 individuals.
Switzerland has 207,000 people born in Portugal, followed by the United States of America (162,000), the United Kingdom (156,000), Brazil (138,000 in 2010), Canada (134,000) and Germany (115,000).
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