The Portuguese are renowned for their tendencies to travel and settle in far corners of the globe. Their historic empire spanned from Brazil in the West to Sri Lanka and Macau in the East, while Africa’s Angola and Mozambique were also colonized, amongst several other nations, all of which have since achieved independence.

In light of Portugal’s past, perhaps it should have come as little surprise to learn last month that as many as 240,000 people had left the country; that is more than 2% of the entire population.

But the current exodus of Portuguese can hardly be placed in the same bracket as their forefathers, whose colonisation of foreign lands was born out of imperial spirit at a time when Western Europe’s superpowers were wealthy enough to invest in and reap the economic rewards from possessing large swathes of territory abroad.

This time financial ruin and severe unemployment have…