Estarão os Portugueses a ‘votar com os pés’? Uma apreciação sobre a questão

As is well known, human migrations, at the regional scale, are due to a diversity of factors. Being understood as a reaction of the population to the (unacceptable) disadvantages of economic nature presented by the origin region, these demographic movements constitute an important example of the, so called, ‘feet voting’. Clearly, the inexistence (or the mere inefficacy) of regional policies designed to eliminate this phenomenon causes the inevitable human desertification, which, certainly, constitutes a crucial obstacle to the regional development.
The main objective of the paper is to verify if it exists, in Portugal, empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis that the regional migratory movements can be associated with the phenomenon of ‘feet voting’. The time elapsed between the two last Population Censuses (1991 and 2001) seems to be enough in order to be able to scrutinize with some security the migratory trends in Portugal, using a methodology that it is based on the use of statistical techniques especially adequate in the treatment of variables which reflect a particular spatial localisation.