Portuguese Population. From structural characteristics to the renovation of the demographic system

The goal achieved with this project, funded by FCT, refers to what we considered to be the urgent need to fill a gap regarding scientific research in Portugal, which made more difficult more difficult the achievement of studies in other areas of social sciences and humanities: the inexistence of a “History of the Portuguese Population.”

To this end the team proposed to:

• carry out a thorough bibliographic research on the works about this theme, even if with quite different purposes;
• simultaneously, carry out a careful research of printed sources and of the contemporary documentary collections regarding different periods, beginning, whenever possible, with the leads listed by several authors;
• analyse all the information collected in the methodological perspective of Paleodemography (though without engaging in a specific research), Historical Demography and Demographic Analysis, according to the historical epochs and existing sources in each period;
• prepare a text that reflects an integrated vision on all the research carried out in previous phases;
• disseminate the results obtained according to two types of initiatives. In a first level, and still at an exploratory stage, through teaching, conferences and the participation in congresses (2005,2006); in a second phase, following the publishing of a text final synthesis (2007).

The main result of this Project is the work History of the Portuguese Population, already published by CEPESE.

Coordinator - Teresa Rodrigues