op>
1961-70
10,720.6
-282.6
-1,355.2
1971-81
838.7
1,284.1
+445.4
In economic terms, between 1973 and 1979, emigrant remittances represented 8.22 percent of the gross domestic product; between 1980 and 1989, the number rose to 10 percent. As a percentage of the GDP, remittances varied between 5.6 in 1975 and 12.1 in 1979, according to the Instituto Nacional de EstatГstica. Considering the relative weight of remittances in relation to the country's exports, the figures are even more impressive. Remittances increased from 13 percent of the country's exports in the 1950s to 25 percent in the 1960s and 56 percent in the 1970s. p> These crude indicators illustrate the impact of Portuguese emigration on the country's economy and demography, but they do not tell whether that impact was beneficial. The latest econometric simulations to measure the trade-off between emigration and remittances suggest that "past emigration had positive welfare effects, which means that the positive effects of remittances dominate the negative welfare effects of depopulation. However, the annual growth of domestic production has been slowed down by about half a percentage point. "
Changes in the 1970s
With or without state permission, by the mid-1960s and early 1970s, the Portuguese were leaving the country in increasing numbers. Sociologists and historians working during those years stressed the duality of Portuguese society and the imbalances of the country's economic structure as the main factors driving a growing number of migrants out of the country. Economists prefer to emphasize pull factors, and they name the wage differential between Portugal and the receiving countries as the main factor driving Portuguese emigration. According to one recent study, changes in the productive structure in the 1960s created high natural rates of unemployment and chronic underemployment in the agricultural and family craft sectors, thereby giving a growing number of Portuguese men in their prime strong reasons to migrate to improve their lives. p> The push-pull factors analyzed in these works were obviously important, but for the most part, they ignore the condition that if international labor flows are indeed demand-oriented, the response of each individual does not depend on the evolution of the labor market in the host country alone. Indeed, the evolution of migration after 1974 clearly reflects the impact of other factors, namely, the political sanctions of the recipient nations and the strength of migrant networks active at both ends of the trajectory. Without taking these factors into consideration, how can the extremely low migratory flo...
