POPULATION-PORTUGAL: Getting Older and Older

By Mario de Queiroz Reprint | | Print |

Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, Dec 28 2005 (IPS) - The Portuguese population is getting older and older, people are marrying less frequently and later, and the net birth rate is close to zero, according to the latest figures published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

The statistics show that last year there were 109 elderly people for every 100 people aged 14 or under, compared to 107 in 2003. Life expectancy was 74.5 years for men and 81 years for women, up from 66 years for men and 74 years for women in 1960.

The highest ageing rate was recorded in the southern region of Alentejo, which had 170 elderly people for every 100 young people, and the lowest was in the Azores islands in the Atlantic Ocean, which had 62 for every 100, according to data collected in 2004. INE defines people over 65, the pensionable age, as “elderly,” and those over 80 as “very elderly.”

The Institute’s studies also show that the trend towards fewer marriages continued last year, and that people are marrying later in life. In the last four years the number of marriages has fallen by 23 percent, according to INE research published on Tuesday.

In the same period, the age at marriage of both men and women has increased by about one-and-a-half years. The age of women having their first child increased by one year between 2000 and 2004, and less than 30 percent of Portuguese families included more than three persons in 2004.

A similar trend is occurring in the other countries of the European Union (EU), where the ageing of the population has obliged governments to increase immigration quotas, despite protests from rightwing nationalists.

All EU member countries share that tendency, which began four decades ago with falling birth rates, and has been accentuated in the last few years by improvement in socio-economic conditions, greater access to health care, and advances in medicine.

However, the situation in Portugal is particularly serious because of the precarious state of the economy, which in 2005 again ranked last, below that of Greece, among the 15 long-standing members of the EU.

This year even Slovenia and Malta, two of the 10 new states that entered the EU on May 1, 2004, out-performed Portugal.

According to Eurostat, the EU’s statistical system, 12.5 percent of the union’s citizens are between the ages of 65 and 79 and 4.05 percent are 80 or over. Between 1960 and 2002, average life expectancy in the 25 countries increased from 67 to 75 years for men, and from 73 to 81 years for women.

Italy has the highest proportion of elderly people (aged 65-79) in the EU, at 14.4 percent of the population, and Ireland has the youngest population, with 8.5 percent of its inhabitants belonging to the 65-79 age group.

Sweden heads the list of countries termed “very elderly,” with 5.3 percent of its population aged 80 or over. Poland comes last with 2.4 percent, and 3.7 percent of Portugal’s population is 80 or over.

INE estimates that by 2050, some 950,000 Portuguese will be over 80. That’s nearly 10 percent of its present population of 10.5 million people, which is not expected to vary significantly, according to projections.

The “elderly” and “very elderly” are expected to account for 32 percent of the Portuguese population by 2050, compared to 17 percent at present.

Immigrant labour has become indispensable to national businesses, in particular because of the effects of the so-called “social Europe” which makes it possible for a Portuguese person to reject jobs that he or she does not want to do.

Many kinds of work are rejected by the Portuguese, who prefer to draw unemployment pay for 18 months rather than accept jobs considered “lowly,” especially in construction, cleaning and food preparation.

The effect of an ageing population on the national economy may be to mortgage Portugal’s economic development in future years. The illegal working conditions many foreigners are forced to accept may cause the collapse of social protection systems in the next 20 years.

Many young people are deterred from marrying or having children because they perceive the economic situation to be very uncertain, and because childcare centres are expensive and scarce.

Carla Mouzinho, a young woman who works for the Mario Soares Foundation in Lisbon, has chosen to have an only daughter. In addition to the financial aspect, “in the richer European countries there are ways of easing the burden of raising a child and keeping to a work schedule, with state childcare centres that are practically free of charge,” she explained to IPS.

Portugal, she said, “also has childcare centres, but the vast majority are privately run, and you get really anxious as the clock ticks on, because if you’re late (picking up your child) you have to pay extra.”

A similar attitude is taken by Rafael Toucedo, a sports writer for “O Jogo,” who recently moved in with a reporter from “Sport TV.”

They live together in their new apartment, “but we’re not even thinking about children for the time being,” because “although between us we earn an acceptable income, in journalism today we must always be available for editors’ ‘surprise’ assignments,” he told IPS.

This context favours those described by Portuguese politicians and analysts as “unscrupulous businesspeople,” who choose to employ undocumented immigrants on a precarious basis.

In an analysis published on Dec. 27 in “Jornal de Negócios,” a business newspaper, economist Pedro Guerreiro drew attention to the plight of an undocumented immigrant who “worked for three years as a janitor in a football stadium, for a company sub-contracted by a Lisbon club, with no contract, paying no taxes and making no social security contributions.”

He was then “dismissed, with no severance pay or unemployment benefits,” he added.

Months later, “he found work, but again without a contract. He fell off a third-floor scaffolding. Did they call an ambulance? No, the construction company did not want to get involved. They put the injured man in a pick-up truck and took him to hospital. It was reported as a ‘domestic accident.’ Now he’s at home, with broken bones, no work, no sick leave, no sickness benefit. And this is a true story,” he affirmed.

These immigrants, who are invisible to tax records, are outside the system because they can’t get in. “Nobody will give them legal employment, the people they work for won’t put them on the payroll, because it’s cheaper not to – at least 23.75 percent cheaper,” said Guerreiro.

All this is possible in the context of what the analyst describes as “a black economy that tunes the engine,” in a country of “them and us,” where there are “ghettoes for the poor and ghettoes for the rich.”