Portuguese Emigration: Methodological Issues and Main Trends and Patterns

Inês Vidigal , ISCTE-IUL
Rui Pena Pires, ISCTE-IUL
Joana Azevedo, ISCTE-IUL
Carlota Moura Veiga, ISCTE-IUL

The right to leave a country of residence does not correspond to the immediate right to enter a country other than that of nationality, resulting from this an asymmetry on international migration. Consequently, as a rule, there are no records of exits (emigration), but only of entries (immigration). The best way to estimate and characterise a country's emigration is, therefore, to compile data on the entry and stay of emigrants in the countries of destination, the so-called "mirror statistics". These are the statistics that the Emigration Observatory collects, assesses and analyses in order to characterise both the flows of Portuguese emigration and the population of migrants born in Portugal that live abroad. This presentation discusses methodological issues involved in the study of statistics on international migration and uses the data compiled by the Emigration Observatory to analyse the main trends and patterns on the evolution of Portuguese emigration in the 21st century and, in particular, its relations with the evolution of employment in Portugal.

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 Presented in Session P3. Poster Session Migration, Economics, Environment, Methods, History and Policy