Portuguese Migration Studies

In: International migration review: IMR, Volume 17, Issue 1, p. 138-147

Abstract

In this research note it is intended to give both, a survey and an evaluation of the research work that has been carried out in Portugal on the economic aspects of one of the most characteristic and persistent phenomena that have been marking the life of Portuguese people: emigration. Since emigration is an extremely complex phenomenon requiring an inter-disciplinary approach, limiting this survey to covering only the economic research does, in fact, constitute a limitation which the author attempts to overcome, in part, by indicating some titles of literature in neighboring fields that will give the interested reader the possibility of access to studies that have been conducted in Portugal on other aspects of the emigration phenomenon. Apart from this, the present survey takes into consideration only the Portuguese migration to Europe and is restricted to the studies that have been produced after the occurrence of two events which have undoubtedly deeply influenced the patterns of Portuguese emigration, i.e., the crisis which shook all western European countries at the beginning of the 1970s and the political changes that took place in Portugal after April 25, 1974.