Paper short abstract:

The study will focus on these movements' statistics and socio-demographic impacts on the country. Statistics data will be collected and after being treated, they will be properly analysed for later qualitative evaluation of the evolution effects.

Paper long abstract:

The present work is going to focus on the analysis of the migratory path of the country during the 60's and beginning of the XXI century, highlighting the shift of this migration in the context of international migrations. It emphasizes the importance of female emigration in Cape Verde and the mass immigration from ECOWAS, mainly from the 90's. At the same time, it will discuss the impacts for the country. The main problem that justifies this study is the increase on female emigration and the switch from the emigration stage for the coexistence emigration/immigration, with the entrance of ECOWAS citizens. This has motivated a significant change on the national migratory profile, with diverse national, ethnic and religious origins. In absolute terms, from 5 people in 1990, it changed to 3.778 in 2010 (DEF, 2010). The total number of foreign people living legally in Cape Verde until 1990 was 174. This number increased to 7.453 people (3.778 from ECOWAS countries). These represent 50.6% of the immigrant population living in the county in 2010. The number of illegal immigrants is also worrying. It is estimated around 15 to 20 thousand illegal immigrants (Teixeira, 2010). Yet 2010 Census presents approximately as twice as the legal immigrants (14.373 from which, 8.78 from ECOWAS, representing about 61.1%). Guineans represent the majority (5.544) effectives in relation to INE (National Institute of Statistics) data and 1.530 in the case of DEF data.

Key words: emigration; immigration (from ECOWAS); migratory dynamics; female migrations; socio-demographic impacts.