Population of Portugal, by gender 1864-2020

This graph shows the population of Portugal from 1864 until 2020, by gender. Throughout this period the number of women has always outnumbered men since 1864. In the first entry the number of men was 2 million people, and the number of women was 2.2 million. We can see that this difference remained until the turn of the twentieth century when the gap became broader. From 1910 until 1920 the population of Portugal experienced limited growth as a result of food shortages and influenza, and women appear to have been more heavily affected by this than men.
From this point onwards the number of men and women follow a similar trend, although the growth and decline rate for men fluctuates more than women. The population falls in the 1960s, as many Portuguese people migrated in search of work, and the number of men fell faster than the number of women during this time. As time progresses the difference in the number of men and women decreases, until 2005 where the number of men starts to decrease before the number of women does. This decline came as many Portuguese people emigrated in search of work abroad, and the number of men falls faster than the number of men, as men are statistically more likely to migrate in search of work than women.