Some 60,000 Portuguese emigrated in 2021, 15,000 more than the previous year, in a “remarkable recovery” in departures, after a brutal drop in 2020, with the United Kingdom retaking its position as the main destination, according to the Emigration Report.
The document, to which the Lusa agency had access and which will be presented today at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Lisbon, is an initiative of the Secretary of State for Portuguese Communities and is based on data collected by the Emigration Observatory, a research center of 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 will have emigrated, 15,000 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 coronavirus pandemic. Covid. -19 in the movement of people.
The document specifies that, between 2019 and 2020, “emigration had a drop of around 44%, as a consequence of the combined effects of the pandemic crisis and ‘Brexit’ [saída do Reino Unido da União Europeia]”.
“The confinement policies put obstacles to mobility and produced a global economic crisis of great proportions that explain the abrupt halt in international migration,” the authors write.
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, again, on a growth trajectory.”
The authors of the report consider that “it is still early to know if this growth will be sustainable or if emigration will stabilize at a level lower than expected 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 leaving the European Union continue over time, making it difficult to enter what was the main destination for Portuguese emigration, at least for the entries of less-skilled immigrants. “, it is underlined.
Citing data made available by the United Nations in 2022, the exposure points to 2,631,559 Portuguese emigrants – people born in Portugal living abroad, who represented, in 2019, about 26% of the population residing in the country, being the eighth country in the world with the most emigrants.
Globally, in the same year, there were more than 247 million international migrants, that is, 3.4% of the world population.
In 2021, of the 23 destination countries with high flows of Portuguese emigration, more than half (14) were European.
The destinations through which 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 amounted to 156,295, 5.7% less than in 2020, the majority (53.1%) being women and only 2.5% over 65 years of age. .
This indicator makes the United Kingdom the second country, after Ireland, with a younger Portuguese emigrant community.
The Portuguese represent 1.6% of all those born abroad residing in the United Kingdom, the fourth in the world where more Portuguese emigrants reside.
Outside Europe, the main destination countries for Portuguese emigration are part of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP): Angola (1,708 in 2019) and Mozambique (1,000 in 2016, the latest year for which data is available).
There was a “slight increase” in entries in all countries analysed, with the exception of Australia (48.7% less) and Macao (73.1% less).
Men emigrate more than women and, in terms of age range, 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, mainly the result of the great wave of emigration in the 1960s/70s, with 598,000 people.
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).
23% of immigrants residing in Brazil (in 2010), 9% of those residing in France and 8% of immigrants in Cape Verde (2018) and Switzerland were born in Portugal.
Source: TSF
