In about a single decade, the number of foreign residents in Portugal increases 137%, from 172.912 in 1996 to 409.185 in 2006. This growth in the number of immigrants obviously has consequences in the context of marriage. The data for the marriages occurred between 2001 and 2005, provided by the official national statistics, indicates that the unions in which at least one spouse born outside of Portugal increased 107.8% in that period of time, from 2063 to 4287.
In this research we examine the intermarriage patterns among five groups of immigrants in Portugal, those who correspond to the majority groups and that are associated with different flows in the Portuguese history of immigration:
Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Ukraine and Brazil. We use the marriage microdata from the 2005 official national statistics.
We’ll review the existing patterns of marriage not only between Portuguese and non-nationals, but also between non-nationals among them. Although the level of endogamy within groups of immigrants it’s an important theme in this research, other characteristics, such as nationality, qualifications, age, the existence of children, among others, may also contribute to different kinds of marriage in society now, and so they are also under scrutiny.

key words: endogamy; Exogamy; educational homogamy; immigrants; intermarriage; patterns of marriage.