Summary and Conclusions

Abstract

Did post-war overseas emigration from the Netherlands perhaps take the place of colonial activities which had ceased to exist? This may have played a role in a number of individual cases, but it can certainly not be said to typify emigration as a whole. From a sociological and economic point of view, but above all from a demographic angle, pre-war colonial activities and post-war emigration were entirely different phenomena — for one thing, they drew their material from different social reservoirs. Overseas emigration, unlike colonial mobility, was fed by all strata of the population and least of all, relatively, by the upper social strata.