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GeogOnline: GCSE Case Study - Migration Away from a Rural area - Northern Portugal.

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  This Case Study looks at the migration of people away from a rural area. The rural area chosen is northern Portugal -  the area north and inland from the city of Oporto (see map). 

Portugal is a remote western European country attached by land to Spain. It is  a member of the European Union. Until recently it was very poor and backward by western European standards. Now it is developing rapidly gaining advantages from its membership of the E.U.

Many male workers have migrated to work in cities in richer European countries like Switzerland. this is our case study. We will look at:

  • The push factors causing economic migration
  • The effects on the migrants
  • The effects on the people left behind
  • The effects on the place itself.

Click here to visit the linked site on Switzerland.
 
 Push Factors - why people leave northern Portugal:
  • lack of employment opportunities except for farming
  • low wage economy - long hours for low pay
  • a lot of underemployment - work available only at certain times e.g. harvest time
  • overpopulation - more people than he land can support so a lot of people are landless peasants
  • lack of opportunities for educated people - so high achievers leave the area
  • outmigration of the young to find work - leaving a ageing (residual) population.
    

The Effects on the Migrants: They come to the west country to do the jobs that nobody else wants - menial work, such as food packing. One of the workers, Florival Rosa, (photo opposite) said: "Third world conditions, six or seven guys in a room. No closets for clothes, no room for food, having to make your own food. "The council has ordered the Eurowork agency to move most of the workers out. One factory manager told HTV that it paid the agency two thousand pounds a month per worker but the agency is denying that workers are being exploited.
The quote above comes from an HTV news story - the migrants come to Britain as well as to Switzerland. The effects on them are:
  • loss of self respect - they are treated as of low value - almost like slaves.
  • They live crowded together in bunk bed dorms (photo opposite)
  • They are given lower pay than workers of that country - they are exploited.
  • they suffer from loneliness and miss their families during the months of separation.
  • some make new relationships or their partner does and lose their families.

Effects on those left behind:
  • more worker for the partner - usually the wife who has to look after the home, the children and all the domestic chores without her partner
  • the children miss their father and may feel sad
  • the people left behind are older and less energetic. those with 'get up and go' have 'got up and gone'. The area stagnates and little changes.

 

 
Any Good Effects?
  • more money sent home so a better standard of living. wages are 5X higher in Switzerland than in Portugal.
  • wage rates in Portugal may rise because with so many people away there is a shortage of labour.
  • women have more opportunities to get paid work or play a leading role in society. Many men are away so the women have more opportunity to make decisions.
  • The migrants are treated as heroes when they return - and have high status as good earners. They have respect locally.
Effect on the place:

Some farmland has been abandoned. The terraces are becoming derelict and overgrown. The vineyards are being neglected. some farmhouses have been abandoned.

Other properties are being modernised with the money earned from abroad. These will improve the look of northern Portugal.

There are opportunities for new young a farmers to innovate and get grants for machinery from the EU - because this is  a poor area. New crops are being introduced as irrigation is modernised.
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