However, the new United Nations data do not match the latest surveys. In Canada alone, the Portuguese appear to have multiplied six times over the country’s 2016 census.
▲ These data reflect new figures for 2019, the elimination of 2017 and significant changes in the data series for the years 1990 to 2015.
More than 2.6 million Portuguese currently live in emigration, according to the latest revision of estimates on United Nations international migrations released Tuesday by the Emigration Observatory (OE) with reservations about their reliability.
According to the United Nations, 2,631,559 Portuguese resided abroad in 2019, 57% in Europe (1,493,128), 40% in the Americas (1,051,484) and 3% (86,947) in Africa, Asia and Oceania.
The new data reveal a “sharp growth of Portuguese in the American continent and a decrease in the European and African continents”, variations that raise questions of “reliability” and should be “read with caution”, according to the OE.
These data reflect new values for 2019, the elimination of 2017 and significant changes in the data series for the years 1990 to 2015.
Inês Vidigal of the Emigration Observatory explained in statements to the Lusa agency that the results of the review “do not match the data” of the observatory itself or the statistical institutes of the host countries. “We have very different values. For example, Canada’s figures rise almost sixfold and do not correspond to the last censuses Canada had made in 2016. We went from 143,000 to 624,000 [Portuguese emigrants]. It’s a difference that doesn’t seem right to us, ”he said.
On the other hand, the head of the OE points to the “very large decrease” in Angola’s values, which goes from 92 thousand to 5,000 Portuguese residents. “These are the most extreme cases. Globally, the old values of 2.3 million Portuguese emigrants [estimated by the United Nations] are closer to what will be reality, ”he said.
For years, the biggest differences noted refer to 2015 and the comparison between 2019 and 2017. Despite the doubts raised by the new statistics, Inês Vidigal assumes the responsibility of the Observatory to disseminate the information that is being produced. “We have questions and we are trying to understand with the United Nations what this difference means, but we also do not want to be told that the data came out and that we are not talking about it,” he said, adding that, for now, the new values were not integrated into the official information available on the EO website
However, the State Budget admits that the variations recorded may be less related to changes in population movements and more to the recording and estimation of these movements.
According to previous United Nations statistics, in 2017 there were 2,266,735 Portuguese residents, 1,502,151 in Europe, 592,642 in America and 171,942 in other regions. In the same year, the World Bank estimated at 2,289,642 the number of Portuguese emigrants.
The Emigration Observatory is an independent technical and research structure integrated into the ISCTE-IUL Center for Research and Sociology Studies. Created in 2019, the Observatory aims to monitor the evolution and characteristics of Portuguese emigration and Portuguese emigrant populations, disseminate information and promote its availability and discussion to the general public as well as researchers, students, policy makers and journalists.
The structure also aims to contribute to the definition and evaluation of public emigration policies.
