Return migration to Portugal: a never ending historyAbstract
In this paper we analyse return migration to Portugal in a historical perspective, most based on the Portuguese scientific literature produced on the subject, particularly since the 1980s. With this works available, it is possible to reconstruct the pattern of returns through its volume recorded in the censuses (or in other ways), to know returnees' profiles and to evaluate some of the return impact on the development of the regions of origin, given that almost all returnees go to the same region from which they left. We reconstructed the pattern of returns and the profile of returnees according to the information of flows between the 1980s and 2011 from the existing literature review; Eurostat indicators allow the analysis of more recent return migration volume. We verify a relative homogeneity in the profile of the returns from the past, in contrast to the differentiation of the subsequent returns, which result from an out-migration that has also diversified.
Keywords: Return migration; Portugal; Portuguese out-migration; History; Indicators