|
Portugal Population Size and Structure
Although population estimates are available for earlier
years, the first official Portuguese census was taken in
1864. It
showed a population of approximately 4.3 million (see
table 2,
Appendix). Thereafter, the population increased slowly at
rates
often well under 1 percent per year. Only during the 1930s
and
1940s did the population increase at over 1 percent per
year.
During the 1960s, the population actually fell by over
300,000
and in 1970 amounted to more than 8.5 million. During the
early
1970s, population continued to fall or was stagnant. This
demographic trend was the result of widespread emigration.
Many
Portuguese left their country in these years to find
employment
abroad or to avoid military service in the wars Portugal
was
fighting in its colonies in Africa.
In 1974 the country's population showed its first
sizeable
increase and by 1981 reached nearly 9.8 million, 1.2
million more
than it had been ten years earlier. The settling in
Portugal of
an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 refugees from the
country's
African colonies accounted for most of this increase.
During the
first half of the 1980s, the population grew at a rate of
about
0.8 percent a year, then declined. As of the early 1990s,
population growth was estimated at 0.4 percent a year. By
the
beginning of 1992, the population of Portugal, including
the
Azores and Madeira, was estimated at nearly 10.5 million.
Population specialists projected that if existing trends
continued, the country's population would peak at 10.8
million in
2010 and fall to 10.5 in 2025.
This population was not evenly distributed. As of the
late
1980s, continental Portugal had an average population
density of
109.6 persons per square kilometer, but some districts
were much
more crowded than others. The eastern districts bordering
Spain,
with the exception of Faro, had the lowest population
density,
ranging between 17.0 per square kilometer in Beja and 35.6
per
square kilometer in Guarda. Coastal districts from the
northern
border down to and including Setúbal registered the
highest
concentrations of people. The districts of Lisbon and
Porto, with
770.2 and 697.5 persons per square kilometer,
respectively, were
as densely populated as many urban regions of Northern
Europe
(see
table 3, Appendix).
Some of these differences in population density
resulted from
topography. Mountainous regions typically contain fewer
people
than flat coastal regions. But some differences resulted
from
migration from one area to another within Portugal or from
migration abroad. During the period 1911-89, five
districts, all
of them bordering Spain in the east, lost population:
Guarda lost
about one-fourth of its population, Beja and Castelo
Branco lost
about one-tenth, and Bragança and Portalegre each lost
about onetwentieth . The only eastern district posting a gain in
this
period was Évora, which grew by about one-sixth. Two
inland
districts, Vila Real and Viseu, showed almost no growth;
another
inland district, Santarém, with significant industrial
employment, grew by one-half. All coastal districts gained
in
population during this period. Coimbra and Faro grew by
onefourth , Aveiro and Braga doubled their populations, the
districts
of Lisbon and Porto increased by two-and-one-half times,
and
Setúbal increased more than three times. The Azores showed
almost
no gain in population, but that of Madeira grew by
two-thirds.
The main areas of population growth were urban centers
and
the district capitals. The urban-industrial centers along
the
coast--Lisbon, Porto, Setúbal--took in the largest numbers
of new
immigrants. However, only the cities of Lisbon and Porto
had
significant populations, approximately 830,000 and
350,000,
respectively, at the end of the 1980s. They were followed
by
Amadora with 96,000 (part of greater Lisbon), Setúbal with
78,000, and Coimbra with 75,000. At the beginning of the
1990s,
therefore, some two-thirds of all Portuguese still lived
in what
were classified as rural areas despite the significant
growth of
some urban areas.
The Lisbon area was the region of greatest population
growth
in absolute terms, in part it was the seat of much of the
country's governmental apparatus, as well as its
manufacturing
and service sector jobs. Until the 1960s, the area's
population
increases were mainly inside the city of Lisbon, but since
then
the suburbs have grown most rapidly. The central city's
population remained largely stagnant or even declined in
some
years, while that of the suburbs surged. High city rents,
crowding, the decline of old neighborhoods, pollution, and
the
squeezing out of housing by commercial enterprises were
among the
causes of this new suburbanization of Lisbon's outlying
districts.
Government population estimates showed that in the late
1980s
women outnumbered men by a wide margin and that the number
of old
persons in Portugal was unusually high. The 1864 census
and every
census since has shown that women outnumber men. In 1988
this was
the case in all but two of the districts of continental
Portugal,
Beja and Bragança. The greatest disproportions were found
in
northern and central areas where male emigration was most
intense. However, during the 1980s, men formed the
majority in
twenty-two of the country's 305 municipalities. Eighteen
of these
statistically unusual municipalities were in southern
Portugal.
Portugal has long had an aging population. The
percentage of
the population under age thirty has been decreasing since
1900.
Moreover, the rate at which the country's population has
aged
accelerated as ever more young Portuguese males in their
physical
prime left the country. Between 1960 and 1990, the
percentage of
those under fifteen fell from 29.0 to 20.9, while that of
those
sixty-five and older rose from 8.1 to 13.1. The north had
a
disproportionate number of old and very young people,
mainly
those still too young to migrate. In some areas of
Portugal where
employment has been available, this preponderance was not
the
case. Lisbon and the growth areas of Santarém and Setúbal
had a
disproportionate share of those of working age, between
twenty
and sixty-five
(see
fig. 6).
Data as of January 1993
|
