Waves of young Portuguese people are leaving Portugal each year, as per official emigration data. The Emigration Observatory found that 30% of Portugal’s youth lives abroad, contributing to Portugal’s already aging population.
A demographic study has brought further information on Portugal’s migratory challenges. The Emigration Observatory, a research institution headquartered in the University Institute of Lisbon, has found that Portugal’s population has been losing young people to emigration.
The study, titled Atlas of Portuguese Emigration, indicated that 70% of emigrants from Portugal are young: between the ages of 15 and 39. Newsendip verified that this information is backed up by the governmental emigration data in 2022. The study went further and estimated that almost one third (30%) of young Portuguese people live abroad on a permanent basis.
Between 2011 and 2016, the number of long-term emigrants from Portugal was notably high for young people (15−39). It peaked in 2013, to around 10,000 emigrants, going mainly to other parts of Europe. It has gradually gone down to around 5,000 per year. However, in 2022, the number of young emigrants has increased again to above 6,000 for the year.
This outflow of Portuguese youth coincides with an increasing housing price since 2008, which almost doubled between 2016 and 2022. The increase in price is partly due to a large influx of foreign residents to Portugal.
Causes of the youth exodus
The country’s capital, Lisbon, has been taking in waves of foreign workers, many of whom are “digital nomads.” The Portuguese intended to attract more foreign workers and implemented a tax exemption for new residents of Portugal in 2009, leading to unintended consequences.
Remote work has been particularly popular in Lisbon and Porto, in the latter of which 1 of 3 home buyers are foreigners. However, as a result, the prices of homes have increased significantly. One out of 10 Portuguese people started living with a lack of space statistically as of 2021 and housing prices have been skyrocketing recently. In 2022, the highest housing price increase in Portugal was recorded year-on-year, with a 12.8% increase.
Furthermore, salaries are well below the income needed for independence in Portugal — in the 15–39 age group the average salary was calculated to be about 1,000 euros per month in 2021.
To assist domestic residents of Portugal, the former prime minister of Portugal, António Costa, announced the removal of the tax exemption for new residents of Portugal, taking effect in 2024. He said in 2023 that these measures to support non-permanent immigrants “no longer made sense” and were causing “fiscal injustice” for Portuguese nationals.
This decision was not unfounded, as a study conducted by the Bank of Portugal in 2017 concluded that foreign investments into houses, leading to an increase in gross domestic product, was correlated with the increase in housing prices. However, it also admitted that there were other factors that have affected housing prices, such as the change in interest rates leading to different financial behaviors.
Most of the foreign direct investment in Portuguese houses comes from outside of the EU. In 2022, 7 out of every 10 permanent immigrants that entered Portugal came from outside the EU, as per the National Institute of Statistics (INE). The number of permanent immigrants received peaked in 2022, with 117,843 new permanent immigrants. The age groups of 25–44 and 65+ had the highest number of permanent immigrants; the former can be attributed to the digital nomads, the latter to foreign retirees establishing themselves in the coastal country.
Possible consequences
A study from the journal Envelhecimento, ciclo de vida e desafios societais, by PhD recipient in Sociology, Liliana Azevedo, examined Portugal’s aging population, and attributed it to Portugal’s positive conditions to take in retirees. The influx of foreign and Portuguese retirees from abroad to coastal regions like Algarve, Portugal, has increased the proportion of retirees in the country from 1.9% in 2009 to 5.5% in 2020, as per the study.
This phenomenon, combined with the youth exodus, both contribute to Portugal’s move towards an aging population.
Though Portugal still maintains a migration surplus (more people coming in than going out), the country is still considered an “emigration country” by the Emigration Observatory. That is because the funds being transferred from emigrants to people in Portugal (i.e. remittances to their families), far outweigh the remittances from immigrants living in Portugal to their native countries, by a factor of 4. Furthermore, Portugal is one of the countries from which immigrants sent the fewest remittances abroad globally.
However, population scholars previously maintained that Portugal is a “country of immigration.” In 2011, Jorge Arroteia, PhD recipient in social science with a track record studying Portuguese emigration, predicted that Portugal would have to become a “country of immigrants,” as has occurred with the entry of digital nomads.
“Regarding the future, I assume that Portugal has to be and has to accept being a country of immigration in the coming years,” said Arroteia in an interview with the Emigration Observatory. “But be careful, an immigrant population that is not advanced in age, but a population that guarantees, as happened in Luxembourg or France, a rejuvenation of the population.”
