Where is Portugal headed?

Its investigation, entitled «Necessidades em Portugal - Tradição e Tendências Emergente» (Necessities in Portugal – Tradition and Emerging Trends) is supported by the ISCTE (“Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa” and the “Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian”, and is a result of three years work, involving 1237 interviews. The objective of the inquiry was to discover “what’s needed to be happy living in Portugal? What haven’t we given up, and what’s still missing when we talk of quality of life?”

The first results reveal that a fifth of those interviewed “live below the poverty line and have difficulties meeting household expenses, buying food and paying for their children’s educational requirements”.

“The results show that 57 per cent of families questioned live with less than €900 per month – and 42 per cent reveal that they cannot (afford to) take sick leave in full when it’s given, while 12 per cent tell how they simply don’t have the money to pay for all the medication they require”.

Despite enjoying their jobs, Portuguese people “are dissatisfied with their levels of pay. The questionnaires show that employment situations for 41.3 per cent of professional Portuguese are insecure – and more than 50 per cent of these workers consider their salaries to be unfairly low”.

But people aren’t sufficiently outraged to react, and thus the majority of national workers simply resign themselves to their lot: 30 per cent agreed that they would like to change jobs, but more than a third of those dissatisfied confessed that they don’t do anything to change their lives.

For 63 per cent of those interviewed, emigration is out of the question. Most wouldn’t consider “going back to school” for new forms of training – even though they agree that they’d like to express themselves better on paper, learn languages and discover how to use the Internet so that they can help their children with their studies.

Indeed, half the Portuguese population has “difficulty” simply surviving – but citizens don’t see this as a reason for feeling unfortunate. On the contrary, 73 per cent say they’re happy with their lives – pointing to family and friends as the main reasons. But, in contrast, the study shows people are more and more suspicious: 45 per cent of Portuguese suspect their fellow men of one thing or another – and when it comes to feelings about the Government, this percentage rises sharply! Seventy per cent of Portuguese are quite verbal in their opinions over national politicians - saying they are untrustworthy to the point of no return.

When it comes to poor people, the most vulnerable tend to be the elderly, single parent families and those with very low levels of education. Around 20 per cent of Portuguese live below the poverty line, and 35 in every 100 suffer some sort of financial constraints or privation (for example, they can’t afford to heat their homes, or take time off authorised by the doctor – because they really can’t afford the dip in earnings).

Finally, the inquiry registers the fact that “42.3 per cent of Portuguese arrive home from work almost too tired to do the necessary chores that await them – while 33.4 per cent (a third of the population) admit that concentration at work is impaired by family responsibilities”.

And the conclusions highlight “the (humungous) effort, particularly by women, to balance work with family life”.