Demographic profiles and modes of industrialization - the case of Barreiro

Abstract

The author attempts to illustrate and to problematize the relation between family and industry in Barreiro - a modern town on the left bank of Tagus, with a most significant experience of industrialization dating back to the end of last century. Demographic indicators regarding, among others, the rates of feminity, celibacy, marriage, natality, mortality and fecundity are based upon data of the censi covering the period between 1864 and 1981. Furthermore, to enable the reflexion and the debate the author tries to compare this demographic profile with that of Braga — an industrial county in the North, whose dynamics in the 80’s has been abundantly referred to in the Portuguese sociological literature. Although the modernization processes in both cases have had the same general evolution all over the century, they show a great deal of elements of diversity. As a matter of fact, Barreiro and Braga have followed different demographic ways; departures and arrivals may not coincide, as may not coincide the key-dates and timing of change, too.