The social and economic integration of Portuguese immigrants in Brasil in the late XIX and XX centuries

Abstract

Like other peripheral countries in Europe, the growth of the Portuguese population exceeded the economy's capacity to sustain it. This made Portugal the country most affected by emigration in the 19^th and 20t^h centuries, immediately after Ireland. This article studies Portuguese immigrants in Brazil, the major destination of Portuguese emigrants until the 1950s. In terms of its demographic characteristics and the length of its duration, this emigration is the one which presents greater similarities with Irish emigration to the USA. Portuguese emigrants maintained close contacts with Portugal for two centuries, until the 1950s. At this time those contacts became fewer and facilitated the integration of immigrants into Brazilian society.