s, France, and the Federal Republic of Germany. These treaties, which explicitly aimed to maximize economic returns from emigration to these countries, were accompanied by an order to the Emigration Services to allow a maximum of thirty thousand legal departures a year, and by a total ban on the legal departure of those engaged in specific occupations. The combined effect of these policies was to ensure a migratory flow that the state considered beneficial to the country's labor supply and to its economic development.
The rationale behind this last set of governmental policies has to be linked to the new economic model of development endorsed by the Estado Novo during the 60's. In fact, while the previous model of economic development favored the labor-intensive traditional industries in northern Portugal and rural development, the new model favored the creation of a leading modern industrial sector in the Metropolitan Area of ​​Lisbon. It was thought that this new industrial sector in conjunction with emigration would absorb the rural surplus. It was also thought that this industrial sector, along with the banking and insurance sectors also centered mainly in the Lisbon area, would absorb the majority of skilled or highly skilled workers and professionals. In fact, neither of these groups was particularly inclined toward emigration.
On the eve of the 1974 Revolution, the state was ready to promulgate an unprecedented liberal law, justified on the grounds that emigration was highly beneficial for Portugal because it promoted gains in productivity and the rationalization of production methods. The law concluded with the following statement: "Emigration, which acts as a positive factor in modernization and the rationalization of labor, contributed greatly to the progress and development of the country. "Individual freedom to emigrate and return were finally written into the 1976 Constitution. By that time, however, most European countries had shifted to a "closed-door" policy.
The Evolution of Migration Flows
Between 1950 and 1988, the Portuguese Emigration Bureau, the Secretaria de Estado de Emigração, registered 1,375,000 legal departures. Of these, five countries absorbed 82 percent (see Table 10.1). This official picture should be compared with French and German sources, which state that the number of Portuguese migrants entering these two countries, during this period, was 1,259,000 immigrants. Even revising Portuguese emigration figures taking into account only these two destinations, emigration between 1950 and 1988 totaled at least 2,152,000. This means that during this period, at least 36 percent of Portuguese migrants left the country illegally. p> No systematic study has ever been made of clandestine migrants. The study of illegal Portuguese migration in other historical periods, as well as available information on illegal departures to Eu...
