On 4th December 2000, the United Nations General Assembly, taking into account the increasing number of migrants in the world, declared the 18th December as International Migrants Day. To mark this day, Statistics Portugal releases the first results of the ad hoc module of the Labour Force Survey (Labour market situation of migrants and their immediate descendants), which took place during the 2nd quarter of 2014.
From the 6,803.5 thousand estimated population aged 15-64 year, 86.2% were born in Portugal as well as their both parents (population without migratory background) and 12.9% were born abroad or had at least one of their parents born abroad (population with migratory background), of which 9.2% were born abroad (immigrants) and 3.7% were born in Portugal and had one or both parents born abroad (descendants of immigrants).
Those with migratory background have younger age structure than those without migratory background.
In what concerns the educational level, 30.3% of immigrants and 43.2% of descendants of immigrants had completed tertiary education compared with 20.1% for the population without migratory background.
The majority of immigrants (71.0%) have indicated as the main reason for their last migration to Portugal (family reasons, including family reunification), while the work-related reasons stood at 13.5%.