According to INE, in 2019, 42.2% of women aged 18 to 49 and 53.9% of men aged 18 to 54 had no children. In 2013, these figures were much lower: 35.3% and 41.5%, respectively. So, two months before the next legislature, this alarming demographic can’t help but take center stage in the current political debate.
Moreover, this demographic problem is associated with labor factors that require urgent answers. From the outset, the issue of increasing segmentation of the labor market should remain a central element of government policy.
The truth is that the balanced development of the country is simultaneously determined by demographic and labor factors (such as the increasingly late access of the young population to the labor market; uncertainty in employment and recourse to temporary employment; the level of wages or even the size of illegal work) and economic factors (such as the weight of the informal economy in GDP or the evolution of long-term unemployment).
Pay special attention to the data recently released by INE, which reveals a very alarming demographic situation in the country. The average number of children for women and men increased from 1.03 in 2013 to 0.86 in 2019. In turn, 93.4% of women and 97.6% of men in the younger age group (out of 18 at the age of 29) did not have children, and more than half (54.6%) of men aged 30 to 39 were in the same situation. When asked about their intention to have children, 55.1% of women and 47.3% of men answered that they did not intend to have or have more children, while 8.4% of women and 11.0% of men (only 9.7%) did not have and were not going to have children. In addition, a significant proportion of women and men with children (45.1% and 58.5%, respectively) gave birth to their first child later than they wanted, and women who gave birth to their first child later than they wanted were the ones who were marked as very important for The reasons for the delay relate to financial stability, employment stability and housing conditions.
Besides this birth problem, there is emigration. As already highlighted in the 2016 Green Paper on Labor Relations, “the population of Portugal was
has been decreasing since 2010 as a result of the combination of natural balance and migration balance due to a “noticeable increase in emigration”, confirming the movement of population decline in the period from 2011 to 2015, which was concentrated in the population of working age (15 to 64 years). The book also states that Portugal has a higher than average share of non-permanent contracts compared to other countries in the European Union. As noted in this Green Paper, in Portugal “more than half of the contracts awarded in 2015 were urgent”. In addition, a part-time employment contract, paid in proportion to a comparable full-time situation, increased from 3.2% in 2002 to 7.3% in 2014, with a high level of part-time employment (from 42.3% ).
And if a country loses tens of thousands of people year after year due to emigration, without offering its population the hope of a job that guarantees a decent future, then we need an economy that provides more employment opportunities and, in particular, creates skilled jobs. accompanied by fair wages, allowing everyone to enjoy the benefits of future economic growth.
