Migration from Bangladesh, Iran, and Nepal to Portugal, A Review of Statistics

Abstract

The present study deals with immigrants from three Asian countries of Bangladesh, Iran, and Nepal in Portugal. It should be mentioned that the paper is an extract from a section of a doctoral dissertation conducted by the authors entitled “Migration Policies and Asian Immigrants in Portugal; Cases of Bangladesh, Iran, and Nepal.” The aims of this research are to provide a review of official statistics on the conditions of these immigrants and to classify them in terms of the pull and push factors. The idea of the pull and push factors originate in the view that to fully grasp the determining factors of international migration, one should reckon with two groups of factors, those that cause the repulsion of migrants from their country of origin and the attracting elements of the destination. Accordingly, the present investigation was targeted, in the final run, at accounting for what the motivations of the immigrants and how satisfied those expectations were with migration to Portugal. The results indicated that the Asian immigrants in Portugal were not uniform and different migrant communities had various characteristics and targets. In line with this, while the Bangladeshi and Nepalese migrant communities were male based, the Iranian community comprised both male and female immigrants almost identically. Moreover, centrality of Lisbon for the residence of immigrants from the former two countries and higher dispersion of Iranians in different Portuguese cities, including the academic ones, indicated that while migration from Bangladesh and Nepal mostly occurred with economic motivations and job finding goals, Iranian migration could be translated into an academic phenomenon. These findings can be useful in terms of policy making as they provide insight into migration conditions from three important Asian countries to Portugal and what to deal with when addressing the issues of the migrant communities from each country.