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Portugals foreign nationals double in decade

Source: Portugal Resident, 29/12/2023

But it is not a ‘happy picture’ of seamless integration
The number of foreign nationals living in Portugal in 2022 was 800,000 �` double the figure of 10 years ago �` with one in three living at risk of poverty and half a million having been granted Portuguese nationality in the last 15 years, according to the statistical database of the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation.

In a portrait of the “foreign population and migratory flows in Portugal” on the occasion of International Migration Day today, the database, dubbed Pordata, has sought to assess the number and living conditions of immigrants and developments in the granting of nationality and residence permits.

The study concludes that 76% of foreigners come from non-European Union countries, and have an unemployment rate that is more than double the national average (in 2021, for example, these foreigners were earning an estimated “€94 less per month than the national average”).
Just in 2022, “118,000 immigrants entered Portugal, the highest figure since records began” �` while 31,000 left, translating into “23,000 fewer (-43%) than in the year with the highest number of departures, 2013,” Pordata says in its release.
Last year, there were 798,480 foreign nationals living in Portugal legally or in the process of having their residence made legal by state services, representing 7.6% of the total population.
“In the last 15 years, Portuguese nationality has been granted to around half a million foreigners (468,665), both resident and non-resident in Portugal,” says Pordata, pointing out that in the last two years the majority of these grants were given to non-resident citizens with as many as one third going to descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews in 2022.
The number of immigrants decreased between 2010 and 2015, but since then there has been a very large increase and, as an example, between 2018 and 2019, the growth in the number of resident foreigners was of more than 110,000.
“Compared to the Portuguese population, the foreign population in Portugal has a higher proportion of men and is younger,” notes Pordata’s release, adding that the median age is 37, or seven years less than the median age of the Portuguese population.
“The most representative nationalities in Portugal are Brazilian (29.3%), British (6%), Cape Verdean (4.9%), Italian (4.4%), Indian (4.3%) and Romanian (4.1%),” reads the report.
This increase in the foreign population is reflected in the education system, with the number of immigrants enrolled doubling in five years to 105,955 in the 2021/22 school year.
In primary schools, one in 10 children is a foreigner and a third of doctoral students at universities are immigrants.
On the labour front, according to Eurostat, quoted by Pordata, more than one third have temporary work contracts (against an average of 16% among Portuguese nationals in work) and Portugal is 4th country in the EU in terms of the most non-permanent contracts in the European Union among foreign nationals.
With regard to poverty and social exclusion, 31% of foreigners living in Portugal face both �` translating into 11 percentage points above the average for the native Portuguese population facing poverty and social exclusion. This problem is “particularly acute among those from outside Europe (34%).
“Since 2019, the number of immigrants has been three times higher than the number of emigrants, contributing to positive migratory balances,” although the number of emigrants is still significant, adds Pordata, which also analyses that side of things.
“In 2022, 31,000 emigrants left Portugal, 23,000 fewer than in the year that saw the highest number of departures, 2013,” with two thirds of these being men, and almost half (47.6%) having higher education.
Among those who left last year, 51% went to another EU member state; in an analysis of previous years, Pordata concluded that “in 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2021, more emigrants left with higher education than with basic education.”
Source: LUSA

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