This research aims to understand the schooling, academic and professional reality of young Brazilian, Ukrainian and Chinese living in three of the most populated municipalities in Portugal: Lisbon, Sintra and Odivelas. This approach will allow to compare and understand how their life biographies are reconfigured according to their national origin, gender and social class. This research also aims to analyse public policies, actions and practices developed for the social integration of these young migrant descendants in Portugal. The methodology includes statistical data and in-depth interviews, in order to understand the dynamics of social integration experienced by these youth, and the differences of these life experiences according to diverse social and cultural contexts. Research Team: Sofia Gaspar (Coord.), Madalena Ramos, Teresa Seabra, Ana Raquel Matias, Renata Carone and Yuotong Guo. Consultants: Simeng Wang, José Carlos Marques, Juliana Iorio.  

  This research project aims to analyze the evolution and patterns of divorce in binational couples in Portugal between 1995 and 2013. The interest for the divorce in binational couples (also known as exogamic and mixed) lies in the fact that the immigrant communities in Portugal have grown considerably after the 1990s, contributing to the rise of binational couples between individuals of different national origins.   This project includes divorces between national citizens (Portuguese nationality) and citizens of some of the most represented immigrant communities in Portugal, namely from one of the following groups: a) African Countries of Portuguese Speaking Language (PALOP) (Cape Vert and Angola); b) Brazil; and c) Eastern Europe (non-EU) (Russia and Ukraine).   In order to develop a deeper analysis of the motives that lead to the marital disruption, this research project uses a quantitative analysis on the evolution of binational divorces and the sociodemographic characteristics  of the partners involved, and a qualitative analysis about the process of the divorce itself, and the main difficulties occurred at a legal, personal and familial level by the immigrant citizens.

The aim of this project is to describe, analyse and interpret the development of bi-national marriages in Portugal from 1988 till 2011. The bulk of the data will be taken from official Portuguese institutions, particularly from the micro-data on marriage held by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). The study of these databases will give particular significance to the analysis of certain central demographic indicators, e.g. gender, year of marriage, city of residence, place of birth, nationality, children of the marriage, age of partners, previous marital status, profession and education. This information will not only enable us to create the longitudinal design of the main trends and patterns of bi-national marriages in Portugal but also to understand who the social actors (Portuguese and foreign partners) in these mixed unions happen to be.

The ICT skills shortage has been growingly mediated by the political power, at a national and European level, as an obstacle to the economic competitiveness and development. In fact, the eEurope Action Plans diagnose the existence of a growing lack in skills, namely in ICT sector, where the number of working posts that remain vacant is increasing. Presently, in what refers to the Portuguese situation, the referred mismatch between the offer and search of ICT professionals as well as its significance is mostly unstudied. This project aims at analysing this mismatch as well as the measures designed to cope with it, within the specificity of the Portuguese situation. The central hypothesis orienting this research is: the ICT skills shortage is strongly influenced by the asymmetry between the logic and rhythm of the development of the economic and educational systems. Within this general framework, three analytical vectors will be addressed: 1) the processes and the conditions that model the search for ICT professionals; 2) the conditions that model the offer of ICT training; 3) the factors conditioning the search for ICT training.