Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro

Departamento de Economia e Sociologia

Young People:from vocational dreams to pragmatism

Policies and Young People in Rural Development

National Report, Santa Marta de Penaguião Study Area,

Portugal

José PortelaChris Gerry

Patrícia AntónioCarlos Marques

Vasco Rebelo

July 2000

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Theory and methodology......................................................... 1

1.1 Research context, aims, and main concepts........................................................................................................................................ 1

1.2. Methodology: the interview experience, sample profile and data analysis................................................................................................................................................................................................ 2

1.2.1 The interview experience..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3

1.2.2 The sample of SMP youth interviewed: profile and sample limitations..............................................................................................................................11

1.2.3 Data analysis........................................................................................................................................................................................................................13

1.3 The report strucure and the problems of a “double translation”........................................................................................................15

Chapter 2 Santa Marta de Penaguião: from the regional to the local context ................................................................................................

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2.1 Geography and transports: a sense of remoteness and duality..........................................................................................................17

2.2 Demography, housing and interdependency of household members.............................................................................................................................................................................................22

2.3 Education and training systems: poor performance...........................................................................................................................27

2.4 Economy, employment and clientelism.............................................................................................................................................32

2.5. Social welfare: scanty pensions and grants that barely alleviate poverty...............................................................................................................................................................................................34

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2.6 Purchasing power and cultural services: paucity is the rule..............................................................................................................37

2.7 Politics: local participation and duality..............................................................................................................................................39

Chapter 3 Santa Marta de Penaguião: six local paradoxes....................41

3.1 Paradox one: the ubiquitous vineyard versus the generalised rejection of farm employment............................................................................................................................................................41

3.2 Paradox two: education is praised but a large proportion of youngsters leave prematurely the school...........................................................................................................................................45

3.3 Paradox three: completing one’s education is generally seen as a prime means of finding satisfactory employment, yet youth in SMP tend to have reservations about returning to school..................................................................................................................54

3.4 Paradox four: in their transition to adulthood, the SMP youngsters benefit much more from the “local” support than from the state apparatus and the market............................................................................................................................................60

3.5 Paradox five: relatively high youth participation in social and political life versus official ignorance of their ideas, aspirations and needs............................................................................................................................................................................................68

3.6 Paradox 6: For the interviewees, both SMP’s future and the available policies do not look promising. However, youth seem willing to stay ....................................................................................................................................................................................77

Chapter 4 Santa Marta de Penaguião: pathways to employment.........84

4.1 Employment and unemployment in Santa Marta de Penaguião: Recent trends & tendencies............................................................

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....................................................................................................84

4.2 The Occupational profile of the sample.............................................................................................................................................87

4.2.1 Inroduction...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................87

4.2.2 Current occupational profile of the interviewees.................................................................................................................................................................88

4.3 Experiences of employment and unemployment...............................................................................................................................91

4.3.1 From first experiences to the current job: the volatility of employment pathway................................................................................................................................................................................................................................91

4.3.2 First experiences of employment and unemployment..........................................................................................................................................................93

4.4 Employment pathways and the school-to-work transition.................................................................................................................98

4.4.1 Towards a typology of employment pathways....................................................................................................................................................................98

4.4.2 (A) First steps #1 – still studying.........................................................................................................................................................................................98

4.4.3 (B)First steps #2 – working and studying............................................................................................................................................................................99

4.4.4 (C) First steps #3 or Unstable pathway #1 – Indeterminate outcome..................................................................................................................................99

4.4.5 (D) Unstable pathway #2 – Complex, unpredictable outcome............................................................................................................................................99

4.4.6 (E) Unstable pathway #3 – (Un)interrupted exclusion.........................................................................................................................................................99

4.4.7 (F) Stable pathway #2 Interrupted (possible precarious) inclusion...................................................................................................................................100

4.4.8 (G) Stable pathway #1 – Direct, uninterrupted inclusion...................................................................................................................................................100

4.5 Employment pathways: the realities behind the typology...............................................................................................................102

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4.5.1 Introduction........................................................................................................................................................................................................................102

4.5.2 Pathways and turning points..............................................................................................................................................................................................102

4.5.3 Factors facilitating and inhibiting the transition to stable employment.............................................................................................................................112

4.6 Labour market conditions: Santa Marta as a “problem county”......................................................................................................120

Chapter 5 Conclusions and Policy Implications......................................122

5.1 Conclusions......................................................................................................................................................................................122

5.1.1 SMP’s culture is a major element in both social inclusion and social exclusion processes............................................................................................................................................................................................................122

5.1.2 For SMP youth, employment is not work but secure wage-employment..........................................................................................................................123

5.1.3 Broken links in SMP’s school – work chain......................................................................................................................................................................125

5.1.4 Many SMP youth, particularly the more educated, in the course of their school-to-work transition, experience unstable, fragmented and intermittent employment........................................................................................................................................................................................................................126

5.1.5 SMP youth pragmatically revise downwards which rung on their “wish ladder” they expect to finish on..................................................................... ...................................................................................................................127

5.2 Policy implications...........................................................................................................................................................................128

5.2.1 An introductory key note....................................................................................................................................................................................................128

5.2.2 Formal education: personal and occupational dreams, as well as professional schooling, should be respected and promoted...............................................................................................................................................128

5.2.3 Non-formal, continuous education: the need for tailor-made programmes.......................................................................................................................130

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5.2.4 Public sector training: the need for more and better opportunities ...................................................................................................................................130

5.2.5 Employment opportunities in SMP: there is some room for manoeuvre, at least on paper......................................................................................................................................................................................................................132

5.2.6 Some key prerequisites for creating, in loco, the required employment opportunities.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................133

5.2.7 A final key note..................................................................................................................................................................................................................135

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Acknowledgements

This study would not be possible without the invaluable contribution of many people, among whom the researchers would particularly like to acknowledge:

The 11 key informants and “institutional actors”, and, most of all, the 48 young people from Santa Marta de Penaguião who took the time to fill in interview schedules, talk about themselves in open-ended interviews, often lasting up to 2 hours. All these people enthusiastically welcomed the idea of co-operating with the researchers, via interviews, focus groups and provision of complementary data.

Our gratitude is also extended to the junior researchers Sónia Abreu, Paula Queirós and Ana Cláudia Pinto. All three acquitted themselves in a most commendable fashion in the challenging fieldwork and deskwork that this research involved. Their enthusiasm and commitment, competence and clarity – and, above all, their youthfulness – contributed significantly to the quality of the final product.

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Chapter 1

Theory and methodology

1.1 RESEARCH CONTEXT, AIMS, AND MAIN CONCEPTS

This Portuguese qualitative research study is part of wider project (Policies and Young People in Rural Development, hereafter designated PAYPIRD), which involves researchers and “rural youth” of six other European Union (EU) member states: Austria, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, and the UK (Scotland). It has been developed and financed under the EU’s 4 th

Framework Programmeme for Research, Technology and Development1.

According to the PAYPIRD technical Appendix, the aim of the global project is “to analyse the effects of policies on young people (aged 16-25) across rural areas of Europe, focussing particularly on their integration with or exclusion from labour markets”. The same source defines the research effort as “an ex post study of policies affecting rural development, in the broad sense”.

Obviously, the main goal of the national research project is not distinct from PAYPIRD, and it may be formulated as the search for understanding the multiple processes of socio-economic inclusion and/or exclusion of youth that live in Santa Marta de Penaguião (SMP)2. Particularly, inclusion and/or exclusion in/from rural employment opportunities associated with the nature of the labour market inefficiencies, housing difficulties, educational inadequacies, low incomes and poor dynamic economic activities are the core processes of the study undertaken with the young people from SMP, a rural area in northern Portugal (see Figure 1 in Chapter 2). This national report summarises the results of the empirical work that took place in that specific area, which has intrinsic potentialities, essentially due to its landscape and wine production-based economy, as well as several weaknesses (see the overview of the research area also contained in Chapter 2).

Although the research methodology used is dealt with in the next section, at this outset it is appropriate to call attention to the qualitative nature of this study, which, among other reasons, could be justified by the absence of previous studies with a similar, specific focus. Particularly, in the

1 Shared cost contract FAIR 6 – CT 98 – 4171.

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Portuguese case, there is a quite glaring scarcity of studies on “rural youth”3. The present study resorted to qualitative techniques such as semi-structured interviews of key-informants and youngsters and focus group discussions. The use of topic guides, semi- and structured questionnaire was balanced with the researchers’ attitudes of stimulating the interviewees’ participation as much as possible. We believe that all type of informants, particularly the youth, had the chance to express openly their views and experiences concerning the research themes and questions.

Bearing in mind the preliminary nature and scope of this report, we are not going to labour on the theoretical underpinnings of every aspect of the PAYPIRD project’s empirical research. However, it is worth alluding to a few points. First of all, the set of underlying theoretical concepts used is numerous, and among the major ones we would pinpoint to the following: rurality, social and economic policies, youth, social exclusion/inclusion, labour markets, social networks, and rural development. Secondly, it is obvious that any and all of these concepts could be the subject of lengthy (re)theorising from multiple points of view, particularly from the perspective of the interaction between newly collected empirical data and existing theory. Thirdly, and in spite of what has just been said, it is certainly appropriate to briefly outline three general views we take concerning qualitative sociological research.

To begin with, we assume that social phenomena are complex, multidimensional, and dynamic and these features call for particular attention to the various grounded contexts in which both the close and distant social relations take place. To give a very simple example, the family incomes of SMP farm wage workers (a key mechanism leading, or not, to “social inclusion”) have to a large extent been dependent upon the evolution of the international market for Port wine. Qualitative research may uncover the “reality” of social phenomena, promoting the understanding of what lies behind, ahead, above and below it, but, at the same time, it inevitably raises new and at times surprising observations and unanswered questions. Finally, regardless the quality of the research work, the researchers’ views on the concepts used cannot be disconnected from the final findings.

1.2 METHODOLOGY: THE INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE, SAMPLE PROFILE AND DATA ANALYSES

This section focuses on three methodological points. In the first we concentrate on the issues related to the interview experience and the processes we used to pursue our research work. Some considerations will

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be made not only concerning the information gathered with both the semi-structured conversation based upon open questions and the follow-up questionnaire, but specifically the reactions we obtained in the inquiry process. These elements also constitute valuable qualitative data. References to the issue of accessing interviewees will also be made. The second section is constituted by a preliminary, general descriptive analysis of the characteristics of the young people interviewed in SMP. Finally, we put forward some notes on how the analyses were developed.

1.2.1 The interview experience

In order to explore empirically how the rural youth from SMP interact with the labour market, an initial phase of six interviews with key-informants and 46 in-depth interviews was carried out. In a subsequent phase, three focus groups were formed to establish a more integrated approach to the problems of inclusion and/or exclusion of young people of the rural area of SMP into/from the labour market. The two first focus groups were constituted by individually interviewed youngsters and the third one included seven adults representative of what we may call key local “institutional actors”.

Key-informants interviews and interviewers

At the beginning of the research process we interviewed six key-informants from SMP, in order to obtain information not only of how they view young people’s attitudes towards the various aspects of the social sphere but also the institutional arrangements that are directed towards meeting young people’s needs. The interviews were developed on the basis of a topic guide (Appendix 1.1). We found it highly relevant to individually interview the following four women and two men:

- a local priest who has had direct contact with youngsters and their families for a relatively long period of time in their lives and who also has data on the role of the church concerning social welfare;

- a female teacher, member of the managing committee of the school that provides compulsory education in SMP, who gave us information on the most significant problems students encounter when attending classes;

- an agricultural technician, who gave us valuable information concerning the practise of youth relatively to applying to agricultural programmemes and also in relation to local political issues. This was possible since he was a former senior officer of the IPJ - Instituto Português da Juventude (the Portuguese Youth Institute) and he was

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also involved in the youth branch of a political party;

- a female social worker from the Social Welfare Services in SMP, who provided us with information on the Guaranteed Minimum Income4 and on social problems common to dysfunctional families;

- a university lecturer whose parents live in SMP, who gave us her view on how it was to live in SMP and how she currently sees her home area from an outside point of view;

- a female nurse who works at the Health Centre, who is also a member of the local evaluation committee for the Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI). She provided us with insights into some of the social problems that require medical assistance, namely unwanted pregnancies, alcohol and drug abuse.

We had no problems whatsoever of accessing these key-informants, who constituted a valuable source of information not only in the sense of providing information about SMP and its institutional arrangements but also revealing information that was of significant importance to contrast with the opinions of young people. These conversations were used as a basis of the interview guide for the focus groups discussions that took place at a later stage. The interviews were all taped (see Appendix 1.2) and it is important to mention that none of the interviewees felt that the recorder restricted what they wanted to say. All key-informants were willing to participate at a later date in a focus group discussion and interact with other important actors of SMP.

These interviews were conducted essentially by one of the junior researchers that would also interview the young people, with the exception of one of the first interviews, which was conducted by the co-ordinator of our team.

Pilot interviews and subsequent interviewing of youth

At the beginning of the field research we tested both the interview topic guide (open questions) and the questionnaire (closed questions) with two youngsters from SMP. These pilot interviews were conducted by a member of the research team with the presence of the two junior researchers that would be responsible for the 40 interviews that would follow.

Except for eight cases, the inquiry of the young people that constitute our sample was done jointly by two female interviewers: one, who actually asked the questions, and the other who took complementary notes. One of the interviewers has a university degree while the other is in her final year.

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Both interviewers have much experience in conducting interviews, which constituted an important tool in obtaining information from some of the shiest youngsters. In fact, one of the interviewers has an excellent capacity of probing and rephrasing questions in order to make them tangible by all youngsters, independently of their education level and expressing capacities.

Places and time of the interviews

During the interview planning process, the specific place were the young people live was taken into account, due to the heterogeneity of the 10 parishes of SMP. In fact, SMP is constituted of parishes in the highlands and the lowlands. It is in the later that vineyards predominate. This diversity is important in the sense that job opportunities and life experience could be different, depending on the specific parish. It was possible to interview young people from seven parishes of the concelho of SMP, two of them having mountain characteristics (Table 1.1). There are no interviews from the remaining parishes (Fornelos, Sanhoane, Alvações do Corgo).

Table 1.1 - Distribution of interviewees by parish and village

Parish Village Nº of interviewsSão Miguel de Lobrigos SMP (centre)

Laurentim191

São João de Lobrigos São João de Lobrigos 7Cumieira Cumieira

Amoreira51

Louredo Paradela do Monte 5Sever Banduge

Mafómedes22

Medrões Medrões 3Fontes Fontes 1

At a first stage of the inquiry, we interviewed 40 youngsters from SMP. The interviewees were identified mainly through two processes: "direct approach" and "snowball". With the first process, youngsters were approached by chance, on the street, at the occupation/work place and in cafés. In the second, youth interviewed/contacted through the first process were asked for information about other young people (contacts, age, occupation, etc). Respondents were selected to guarantee that a wide range of occupational situations were included, including youth in education and in employment, as well as unemployed and in training schemes.

The majority of the interviews were done at the work/occupation place (services and commerce) of the interviewees, even though some were also

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done in cafés, on the street and at the youngsters' home (Table 1.2). Three interviews were conducted at the Tourism Information Centre and other three in the Local Council. The interviews took place from November to December, 1999. As in the case of the key-informants, we had no problems whatsoever of approaching the young interviewees. All of them were willing to respond to our questions. In all cases there were no problems of securing anonymity.

Table 1.2 - Distribution of interviewees by stage and place of interview

Stage

Place of interview

TotalPlace of

work/occupation Café Home Street1st 25 10 4 1 402nd 1 0 4 1 6Total 26 10 8 2 46

After reflection over the situations provided by these 40 interviews an additional 6 were done with the purpose of filling in the gaps related to the occupation of the youngsters (unemployed, employed in agriculture, undertaking a training course, student). At this stage the contact with the young people was established through key-informants (Job Centre, teachers, elderly inhabitants of SMP), to guarantee that the needed requisites would be met. Four of these youngsters were contacted by phone and two through their teachers and trainee course teacher, the interviews being done at their houses, in the street and in the work place. There were no difficulties of accessing them and the interviews easily took place at the end of February and during March of 2000.

The duration of the interviews varied between 16 and 66 minutes, with an average duration of 35 minutes (see Appendix 1.3). After the interview in the strict sense, the questionnaire was filled in, which took, on average, 10 minutes. All the interviewees allowed the interview to be audio taped, making it possible to transcribe all the dialogue, which led to an extensive work of 906 pages of transcribed interviews.

Social relationships between the interviewees

During the interviewing process, and by mere chance, young people with family and/or friend relationships were interviewed in different moments (Table 1.3).

Table 1.3 - Relationships existent between the youth interviewed

Existent relationships Number of interviewMarried 33-34; 42-43

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Dating 2-24; 6-11; 13-14; 16-22Brother/sister in law 18-29

During the focus groups it was also acknowledged that a great number of the young people interviewed knew each other, having been friends since childhood and/or since school. However, it is not possible to count this number since the relationships were so differentiated and numerous.

The Youth interview environment: openness and hesitations

Practically all the interviews occurred in an environment of great ease, allowing for a very good interaction between interviewers and interviewees. This environment created an enormous openness on the part of the young people leading to relatively spontaneous and reliable answers. Indeed, during the interviews the young people unveiled cultural and personal “touchy” issues and cases such as:

- unexpected pregnancy of both married and unmarried girls;

- friends that were imprisoned;

- difficult interpersonal relations (wife/husband, mother/daughter, father/daughter);

- membership of political parties;

- political influence as a way to get employment.

- intra- and inter-interviews repetitions of expressions and cross-checked information stand for data reliability.

However, some questions did cause hesitations and silence. This did not change the natural flow of the interviews though, which was based upon a trustworthy relationship established between interviewer and interviewee. In fact, at the end of the interview all respondents were asked to give their opinion about the questions made, and the general reaction was that some questions made the interviewees think since they had never felt the need to systematise their thought. This was seen as a positive process to develop a better understanding of how they can learn from their experiences. João (38)5, a teenager interviewed, commented explicitly the following:

You asked questions that made me think. I had never participated in an interview. I happened to like it, I hope I was of help.

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Thus, the pauses and silences are some how natural and, as it could be expected, questions regarding the future raised more silence, independent of the issue: to resume education; future employment objectives; housing plans; or constituting family in SMP. The uncertainty that the labour market induces in young people has implications for their opinions in predicting their future. Very little can be said on where they will live in the future, or if they will resume education until some kind of stability is found in terms of a permanent employment. A great number of doubts seem to come to young people’s minds with other questions linked to the future such as the monthly income, transport access, places to leave the children, adequate qualifications, family support, etc.

It is worth noting that not only questions regarding the future caused silence, but also when the youngsters were asked to formulate suggestions to solve the unemployment problem, the silence and absence of coherent ideas was also a constant. Future projects are effectively linked to a present lived by the young. Prediction is not only difficult for anyone but also somewhat impossible for those whose life aspects depend on a labour market that does not provide them with the basis for any probable future, i.e. stability and security. Many answers started with expressions such as:

I would like to; depends on; if I find a job; if I have money; I am counting on the support of my parents, but I also have brothers; etc.

Thus, in a sense it is easier not to waste time in formulating explicit plans about the future, because then these would lead to more questions and more doubts.

Other issues such as training and youth participation in the social sphere were also thought-provoking. The lack of information or misinformation concerning available opportunities for young people, either in terms of youth policies or in terms of their participation in decision making of social life was a common feature in the interviews.

The final section of the interview guide was on young people’s participation in local initiatives and their views on policies. Due to the translation into Portuguese (policy may equal politics) politics also became an issue. In general this entire section caused quite a few silences motivated by the following factors: some unawareness on the actual participation of young people in benefiting from the policies oriented to the youth and politics in SMP, some ideological disinterest, and some confusion between policies and politics.

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Focus Groups

The fieldwork was concluded with three focus groups. For each focus group a distinct interview guide was elaborated (Appendix 1.4, 1.5, 1.6), based upon the impressions collected from the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the previous interviews. The two initial focus groups were done at the local school of SMP and the third one was done at the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro. All the focus groups had a main interviewer-group discussion manager (variable) and one or two research team “helpers”, who also wrote notes. All these data collection exercises were audio taped, amounting to nearly six hours of “conversation” (Appendix 1.7).

All the contacts made with the young people were by phone and started three weeks before the focus group date, with reminders the day before. The participants of the third focus group were contacted by fax two weeks before. At the end of the two initial focus groups the team and the young people had lunch together providing a further relevant source of information in a less formal environment.

For the first interview, 14 young people who had been previously interviewed were selected due to the diversity of situations that they provided (gender, age, occupation, life history, family situation, etc). However, on the day of the focus group (20th of May) only four showed up. For the second interview (27th of May), 16 youngsters that have or have had experience of unemployment were selected, but again only seven came. Despite the low number of participants in the first focus group, the discussion was of considerable interest. It lasted 106 minutes. The second focus group meeting took 124 minutes and it was also enlightening. We felt that several conclusions withdrawn from the individual interviews were reassured in the groups and the debate among the young people was in many areas quite lively.

The composition of these two first focus groups was as follows.

Focus Group I – diverse experiences:

- Female, age 23, single, works in the Local Council as an administrative auxiliary and studies in evening classes to complete the last year of secondary school, (05);

- Male, age 17, single, student concluding the last year of secondary school, (26);

- Female, age 18, single, student with still two years to complete

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compulsory education, (45);

- Female, age 20, single, works in the city council with a temporary contract, studies in evening classes to complete the last year of secondary school, arrived at the end of the focus group, (09).

Focus Group II – unemployment experiences:

- Female, age 20, single, works in the city council with a temporary contract, studies in evening classes to complete the last year of secondary school, arrived at the end of the first focus group, (09);

- Female, age 25, single, worked in a shop at the time of the individual interview but was unemployed at the time of the focus group, has completed secondary school, (20);

- Female, age 23, single, works in the fathers’ shop, was unemployed for around a year, has completed compulsory education, (23);

- Male, age 18, single, unemployed, has completed compulsory education, (29);

- Male, age 20, single, unemployed, doing military service, has completed secondary education, (41);

- Female, age 20, married, unemployed, works in agriculture, completed compulsory education, (44);

- Male, age 23, married, police officer in Lisbon, had previous experience of unemployed, (was not interviewed individually and is the husband of the interviewee 44).

The third focus group was constituted of “the institutional actors”, who due to their professional experience have contact with young people from SMP. On the day before we had eight confirmations but only seven showed up, due to the last minute absence of the Mayor of SMP. The composition of this focus group was as follows.

Focus Group III - “the institutional actors”:

- a social worker, female, who was previously interviewed as a key-informant;

- a senior officer of the Job Centre;

- a priest, a second one, who is also a teacher in the SMP secondary school;

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- a University lecturer, who was previously interviewed as a key-informant

- a Wine Co-operative manager, male;

- a secondary school teacher, male, who belongs to the Management Committee of the SMP secondary school;

- an officer representing the association of industrial and commercial entrepreneurs of a nearby town.

This final focus group lasted for 125 minutes and it took place on the 30 th

of May. In the aftermath of this meeting, the representative of the entrepreneurs’ association provided additional information to the co-ordinator of the Portuguese research team.

1.2.2 SMP youth interviewed: sample profile and limits of the sampleThis section refers to the general description of the characteristics of the youth interviewed. Given the reduced size of the sample, and the intensive character of the study, we were not concerned about the generalisation of the results, which would require a so-called representative sample. The concern was, instead, to gain variability in the sample, interviewing people with diverse social features and experiences. The various tables concerning the quantitative data presented immediately bellow, in the text, are located in the following chapters, as elements of specific contexts and points. Here, we aim only at a brief, general description of the SMP youth’s interviewed, with a concern on differentiating between genders.

We interviewed a total of 46 young people of which 24 are females and 22 males (Table 1.4). At the time of the fieldwork, in our sample 10 youngsters were classified as unemployed; 29 were employed; 5 were full-time students (only one woman) and 2 men were in trainee programmes. The majority of the young people employed were working in services.

Table 1.4 - Occupational status, by age and gender, at the time of interview

Class of age Teenagers(16-19)

Early twenties(20-22)

Mid-twenties(23-25) Total

Gender Male Female Male Female Male FemaleFull-time student 3 1 1 - - - 5Trainee 1 - 1 - - - 2Employed - 4 3 5 9 8 29Unemployed 2 - 2 3 - 3 10

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Total 6 5 7 8 9 11 46

Compulsory education was attended by slightly more than half (26) of the young people interviewed. We interviewed only 2 youngsters (one female and one male) who attended higher education, one of them having completed her course. A considerable number of young people, 20 interviewees, did not study beyond compulsory education and 5 only attended the primary level, even though 3 of these dropped out before completing this level.

The majority of the respondents, 26 individuals, attended upper secondary education, but at the time of the interview only 12 had completed this level. In general, women have a lower level of qualifications than men: 54% of the female respondents never attended any level further than compulsory education. In the case of the men this figure is around 31%.

More than 80% of the young people from our sample live with their parents and are satisfied with their living arrangements both in terms of physical conditions and of social relations. In terms of gender, women are less satisfied with their living arrangements than men: the only answers of dissatisfaction were of female respondents. Around 60% of the respondents see themselves living in the future in SMP. Female respondents, even though less satisfied with their living arrangements, are the ones that see themselves as most likely to stay in SMP (70%).

Twelve of the 46 interviewees have no access to a private means of transportation, the remaining 34 have access to a car and/or motorbike any time they need to. Access to a motorbike is not common among women.

The monthly income received by young people is relatively low in the sense that, with the exception of one person, all the others receive less than two times the minimum wage which is of around ¤ 300, and in fact, 11 youngsters receive a monthly wage bellow the minimum wage. There are no male respondents in this last income band. It is worth noting that there are 10 people who have no income: five full-time students and five of the unemployed people.

Before presenting some considerations on the analyses we undertook, it is worth noting some of the empirical limitations of our sample. Neither the youth established on the “margins” of our sample nor the SMP’s youngsters who live elsewhere were interviewed. That is, our research data is “biased” against three social categories, whose importance should not be underestimated: the youngest teenagers (13-15 years of age) – who will soon experience something of what we have studied; the older individuals (26-30 years of age) – who already have, and non-residents (including ex-

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residents), who may, in a sense, have “voted with their feet”. In several respects (for example, the period of transition school/first employment, place and duration of the first employment and unemployment) the inclusion of these youth in the sample, would undoubtedly allow more in-depth analyses.

It is also worth mentioning that our sample is possibly “biased” against those youngsters who live in SMP and work outside the county, i.e. in neighbouring towns and counties. Although some questionnaire work occurred during the weekends, we did not interview more than one youngster at such times [Graça (37), seamstress in Vila Real workshop and self-employed tailoress at home]. However, general data indicates that the number of the employed who live and work in SMP is lower than the corresponding figures for the Douro sub-region as a whole, respectively 79% and 91%6. Obviously, these data suggest that there are SMP’s residents working in the neighbouring counties.

1.2.3 Data analysis

After obtaining voluminous transcripts of each type of interviews, a preliminary, global analysis started. The inquiry of key informants, for example, suggested that both the further collection of statistical data from local structures and bodies as well as from a focus group constituted by “institutional actors” would be fruitful. Thus, information on SMP school leaving, the IPJ’s training courses and on recipients of the Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI), for instance, was also collected.

The first reading of the 46 transcripts of the youngsters’ interviews allowed us the following:

- to probe the local milieu surrounding the young people that were interviewed as well as the domains and themes where silence and repetitions emerged;

- to become aware of the limits and internal differentiation of the sample;

- to identify some preliminary, distinct school-work pathways;

- to identify the most vivid and enlightening youngsters’ cases;

- to initiate the crossing of data: youngsters versus youngsters, and youngsters versus key informants.

6 CCRN, Data Base, July, 2000, http://www.ccr-n.pt.

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To deepen and confirm these preliminary outcomes, the transcriptions were read a great number of times. Every time we had a particular aim in mind, and any piece of data selected for comparison was referred, at least, to three axes: the integrity of the individual interview, the context of all interviews and the similarity/differentiation to/from other clusters of cases. Thus, we may refer to forward-backward and bottom-up (extensive and in-depth) readings plus individual, partial (clusters of interviews) and global analyses. Sometimes we have done the quantitative assessment of the relevance of specific experiences or issues that were not covered in the fieldwork questionnaire. In brief, we have tried, first, to separate themes and segments of the interviews transcripts; second, redefine, reassemble and mould them in new concepts and forms of expression.

It is possible to state explicitly that the initial readings of the transcripts of the youngsters’ interviews have allowed us to explore and compare answers around the following issues and dimensions:

- residence versus mobility [(seasonal) (e)migrants, newcomers];

- parents’ and youngsters’ attitudes as to education and school leaving;

- youngsters’ attitudes concerning resuming (adult) education versus working;

- dreams about future professions versus current occupations, as well as current occupations versus likely occupations in the immediate future;

- work (occasional, precarious and stable placements) versus employment;

- public and private supply-led training courses versus demand-led training needs and responses;

- state interventionism versus supportive actions from family and social networks;

- youngsters’ personal life versus youngsters’ civic and political life.

The first readings also served the purpose of compiling the available data in “occupational history-diagrams” (Appendix 1.8) from which we visually inferred certain aspects, particularly regarding the complexity of paths each young person had during their lives. This was of great help in defining different approaches to read the transcriptions, which have allowed, for example, the following:

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- selection of key-statements relating to the themes in the topic guide, namely education, training, (un)employment, housing, family, friends and social networks and policy;

- selection and categorisation of key-statements in terms of the variables we considered most relevant in explaining the nature and dynamics of distinct types of pathways.

The extensive and in-depth analyses were initially developed by distinct members of the research team, who presented their results in regular team meetings. These outcomes were examined and cross-checked by the other researchers’ analyses. Through these discussions, paradoxes involving SMP’s “rural youth” as well as some pathways to (un)employment emerged. The ensuing focus groups discussions helped to review these working hypotheses.

1.3 THE REPORT STRUCURE AND THE PROBLEMS OF A “DOUBLE TRANSLATION”

The structure of this report results from, on the one hand, an initial document provided by the overall research co-ordinator (the “structure for the national reports – draft”), and, on the other, the multiple analyses that were undertaken. Paying due attention to the volume and specificity of the material available, the final structure evolved rather naturally into the following. After setting the theoretical and methodological framework of the research (chapter 1), the regional and local context of the research site is provided (chapter 2). The bulk of the analyses is depicted in six paradoxes that the authors feel not only exemplify but also condition the situation rural youth face in SMP (chapter 3), seven (un)employment pathways and five interviewees’ cases, each one including a pathway summary and a pathway diagnosis (chapter 4). This diagnosis focuses on the key forces that, individually or in combination, influence successive phases of the employment pathway, and its major turning points, namely, personal initiative, policy, social networks, and the market. The major conclusions and main policy implications follow (chapter 5).

In these concluding lines of the first chapter, it seems inevitable that we should raise the issue of the “writing” this research report. Obviously, any report of this sort is a researchers’ “construct”, but we would like to stress that this exercise has faced the problem of what we call a “double translation”. On the one hand, the relatively specific, fluid “language” and views of the youngsters interviewed to some extent had to be translated into the researchers’ discourse. In this respect, for example, it is worth

15

recalling the lad in his twenties whom we interviewed, who quite clearly did not see himself as a “youngster”. It is also true that many of the youngsters may not have perceived themselves as “rural”. Furthermore, Portuguese expressions had do be converted into English. In any case, we hope that the reader will not be either disappointed, or misled, by the double – or even triple – translations that, literally or figuratively, we have undertaken, and which ‘populate’ much of the report that follows.

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Chapter 2

Santa Marta de Penaguião: from the regional to the local context

In this second chapter we present a brief overview of the regional and local context in which the rural youth studied live. We have tried to interconnect data of different sources and nature, moving from, for example, the quantitative data at the regional level to the qualitative information expressed in a specific respondent’s interview.

2.1 GEOGRAPHY AND TRANSPORTS: A SENSE OF REMOTENESS AND DUALITY

In the EU statistical system, SMP is a NUT IV; hierarchically, it belongs to the sub-region designated NUT III (Douro), which in turn is part of the NUT II (Norte), which constitutes one of the components of continental Portugal (NUT Continente). Figure 1 below shows the 19 concelhos7 or counties (NUT IV) that make up the NUT III Douro and their relative positions in the NUT I Continente. The NUT III in which the study area is located takes its name from the major river that divides the region roughly in half. Most of the concelhos of the Douro are part of the demarcated wine region (Região Demarcada do Douro – RDD) that produces the world-famous Porto fortified wine.

The concelho of SMP is situated in the western part of the Douro NUT, between the concelhos of Peso da Régua, to the south, and Vila Real, to the north, whose administrative centres (which bear the same names as their respective concelhos), along with Lamego (further to the South) constitute the main urban centres of this NUT. In spite of the physical proximity between SMP and the main, neighbouring urban centres (Vila Real, 15 km; Lamego, 20 km; Porto, 120 km), once there, one feels a certain sense of remoteness. This psychological outcome results very likely from the association of the following observable features: hilly topography, access roads full of bends, poor public transport system and small communities.

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Figure 1 - Location of Santa Marta de Penaguião

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Thus, no wonder the following teenager commented:

That’s the problemt – SMP has nothing. It is a very small, closed environment. We have nowhere to go. Nothing, all we have got are hills and more hills. There’s no pub, nothing.

Nuno (29), 17 years old

Since the public transport system is poor, SMP residents have to rely upon private means. As to the youth interviewed, the situation is pictured the following way: 20 young men have access to at least one means of private transport, while only 14 young women have access to a car (Table 2.5). Access to a motorbike is restricted to males.

Table 2.5 - Type of access to vehicles, by gender

Type of access Male FemaleCar 15 14Car and motorbike 1 -Motorbike 4 -No access, but driving licence

- 1

No driving licence 2 9Source: Fieldwork interviews, SMP, 1999-2000

From the total of 46 interviews 12 youngsters have no access to any form of private transport. However, most of the respondents (30 out of 34) have access to a vehicle any time they need to (Table 2.6). In this respect, SMP’s position is better than that of the region as a whole. In fact, in 1990, the rate of vehicles was of 160 per thousand inhabitants, compared with 147 and 181, for the Douro area and the northern region respectively 8.

Table 2.6 - Degree of access to vehicles

Degree of accessType ofaccess

Any time

Most ofthe time

Only sometimes

Car 26 2 1Car andmotorbike

1 - -

Motorbike 3 - 1Total 30 2 2

Source: Fieldwork interviews, SMP, 1999-2000

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Access to any form of transportation may obviously diminish the sense of remoteness, but the poor public transport system gets worse as one goes to the most peripheral villages within the concelho. In this and many other respects we may speak of SMP as a dual territory.

A clear duality exists between the group of freguesias9 officially categorised as rural, located in the more mountainous Northwest of SMP, and the parishes in the Southwest of the county. The former have a lower population density; a lower proportion of the land devoted to agriculture, a lower rate of employment, a greater preponderance of aged population, and have suffered from more extreme depopulation.

In all respects indicated above, the parishes of the Southwest, where vineyard production predominates, have the opposite characteristics: more densely populated, more predominantly and intensively agricultural, with a younger and more economically active population.

9 The lowest level of the Portuguese administrative hierarchy.

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Figure 2 - Santa Marta de Penaguião and its territorial duality

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2.2 DEMOGRAPHY, HOUSING AND INTERDEPENDENCY OF HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS

After a slight fall at the beginning of the century, the population of SMP increased 1.6% annually between 1920 and 1940, and since then it has decreased. Portugal’s National Statistical Office (INE) estimates that the relentless downward trend softened somewhat in the early 1990s: from 1992 to 1998, there was an absolute recovery of around 300 inhabitants. How sustainable this deceleration has been will be confirmed after 2001, when the next population census takes place. Nevertheless, the data show that, between the last two Census, the highest recorded rate of population decrease occurred (-1.4% per annum), and that, during the same period, the absolute level of the concelho’s population also reached an all-time recorded minimum.

Source: Instituto Nacional de Estatística

Figure 3 - Population trends in SMP (1900-98)

The population decline is largely explained by the depopulation caused by emigration both to other European countries and to the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto, which reached its peak during the 1960’s and revived during the 80’s. A social worker and a school teacher of SMP secondary school, two of our key informants, respectively stressed the great magnitude of the local, traditional emigration as follows:

They [the youngsters] do think a lot about emigrating. As their uncles as well as with their cousins have done it, as well as their parents, perhaps, it’s never far from their thoughts.

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There are many school students whose parents are emigrants, i.e. away either permanently, or seasonally. During such periods [of parental absence] they live with their grandparents, godparents or uncles, and therefore, it [emigration] is a daily matter that they take for granted and feel to be quite normal.

The social worker referred particularly to the very likely impact of traditional emigration on the youngsters’ attitudes towards job opportunities, particularly among school leavers. She said:

School leavers have little … willingness to work [in farming and building], so to speak. What they say nowadays ... is that, as soon as they are old enough and have got the wherewithal, they will go elsewhere, in or out of the country.

Curiously, it is the same migration movements that explain the slight recovery experienced in recent years: the general pattern for the Douro region throughout the present decade has been for the natural rate of growth to be negative. For example, for the last three years for which data exists, the birth rate was 8.5‰ while the death rate has been around 12‰. The phenomenon of death rates exceeding birth rates is a natural consequence of the double ageing of the population characterising the last few decades, and which tends to persist, as shown in Figure 4

.

Figure 4 - Population by age classes in SMP

The rate of ageing (i.e. the ratio between population over 65 and under 15) grew from 40% in 1981 to 76% in 1991, with a rate of 116% being predicted for 1998. This figure is slightly over the average for the Douro region (109%) and significantly higher than that of the Northern region as a whole (70%). While far from being among the concelhos of the Douro most affected by the relative growth of its aged population, the situation in

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SMP is nevertheless markedly more severe than is the case in the neighbouring concelhos. In addition to the natural ageing of the population, migration has also contributed significantly to an increase in the absolute level of the population over 25 years old.

The marriage rate in SMP is also one of the lowest in the Douro (at 5.8‰), a value substantially lower than the 7.5%o of the Northern region as a whole. As with the birth rate, the explanation for these values is also the low number of inhabitants in the prime marriageable age bracket (namely, from 15 to 24 years old). Marriage remains the predominant option for the rural population, most of whom typically marry early: in 1991, 29% of female residents who had lived to 12 years of age had married by the time they were 20, 77% were married before attaining the age of 25. Elsa (19), who is 24 years old and already has 3 children, and who is a social worker (previously attached to the SMP health centre) corroborated strongly the notion of early marriage. This key informant revealed the following:

[In SMP] there is a strange phenomenon… at the time I was a bit surprised… they marry very young. A 20 year old single girl may be considered a spinster. There is a great concern, both among women and their parents that they marry early. Parents become also very worried if they have a daughter of 18 and do not see her dating. It’s a thing… well, it has to do with culture. … Pregnancies tend to occur at an early age, between 17 and 18 years old. We have a considerable number of pregnancies at those ages.

These data seem to suggest an opposite trend to that identified in many studies on youth in Europe10, according to which there is a marked delay in household formation.

In SMP, the non-existence of a housing market is clear, at least in the traditional sense of the term. Obviously, this is not to say that there are no houses to sell, but the fact is that demand for housing expresses itself in the relation between potential seller and interested buyimng, without intermediaries. The fact that SMP is a concelho close to two urban centres and that much of the available land is occupied essentially by vineyards, has a clear consequence for the house prices; most young people feel that houses are markedly over priced. Nevertheless, the housing issue did not show itself to be of major concern to the young people interviewed. As we will show below, families provide very important support in this regard.

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Most of the youth interviewed (80%), have lived with their parents for a considerable number of years, even after the conventional age of adulthood has been reached (18). In general, they seemed very satisfied with their living arrangements, both in terms of the physical conditions of their houses and in terms of the social living arrangements. There appeared only 2 cases of youngsters who live with their parents and are not satisfied with their present living arrangements. The physical arrangements appear to contribute more to any overall dissatisfaction with living conditions than the social environment young people experience at home. In fact, the perception of a social worker of SMP is that in families that have low incomes there is, clearly, a lack of space in the house for all members of the family and it gets worse if married youngsters continue to live with their parents or parents-in-law. This key informant’s perception is surely right. In fact, SMP is one of the concelhos in Northern Portugal that has more families in houses with over-occupation. The 1991 Census shows that in SMP there are 9% to 12% of the families living in over populated houses. Moreover, the Local Council, according to the same source, invests less than 4% of its budget in building and buying houses for families with economic difficulties. The situation is likely to have deteriorated further in the intervening years, particularly due to increasing house prices.

Table 2.7 - Living arrangements (social and physical)

Arrangements Satisfaction (Social) TotalVery

Satisfied Satisfied Unsatisfied

Arrangements Satisfaction (Physical)

Very Satisfied 22 2 21Satisfied 11 5 1 14Unsatisfied 3 1 1 5

Total 36 8 2 40Source: Fieldwork interviews, SMP, 1999-2000

Analysing the opinions regarding living arrangements by gender we find that women are less satisfied: all the cases of dissatisfaction are of female interviewees, but again the physical conditions constitute more of a concern than the social arrangements.

Table 2.8 - Satisfaction with living arrangements, by gender

Satisfaction Male Female

Physical Arrangements

Very satisfied 14 10Satisfied 8 9Unsatisfied 5

Social Arrangements

Very satisfied 21 15Satisfied 1 7Unsatisfied 2

Source: Fieldwork interviews, SMP, 1999-2000

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It is very rare for young people to live alone, the decision to move out of the parental house normally being linked to marriage. The persistence of one’s living in the parents’ household is partly due to a combination of reasons. Among them there are employment issues, escalating house prices, a reciprocal aid relation between parents and young people, and a culturally rooted idea that youngsters only move out of home when they marry, this being most commonly felt by females. This latter reason is highlighted quite explicitly by the following statement:

Until I marry I intend to stay with my parents. After I marry, we’ll see... How can I explain? For as long as I’m not married, I want to live with my parents, afterwards I’ll want to live with my husband.

Sandra (07), 16 years old, single

The young people interviewed live mainly with their parents and/or relatives, the nuclear family being the most common unit. There was no case of a young person living alone, or with friends. This characteristic applies equally and to an equal extent for both men and women. There are 3 cases of young people being married and living with parents and/or relatives.

Table 2.9 - Living arrangements, by gender

Male FemaleWith partner/spouse 2 4With parents 19 18With partner/spouse and parents 1 1With partner/spouse and relatives 1Source: Fieldwork interviews, SMP, 1999-2000

In 1991, in the northern region and Douro the average dimension of a family was respectively of 3,4 and 3,1 individuals11.

As presented in Chapters 3 and 4, family bonds are effectively very tight at all levels throughout young peoples’ school to employment pathways, but with regard to housing the bonds seem to extent far into the future. It is not uncommon to speak to a young person that foresees him- or herself owning and living in the parental home after they die, even if there are other siblings that may share in the inheritance. This is so particularly if the youngster has helped parents through the ageing process. It is interesting to note that this inter-dependency is recognised by all those involved. Young people point out that parental support is very important but also the parents

11 INE, Population Census, 1991.

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acknowledge the help they receive from their children. This inter-dependence is reflected in the next two statements, in which it is clear that all find this process quite natural.

...now I’m employed I don’t depend only on my parents, I also depend on myself. I receive my salary, I give half of it to my parents and the rest is for me.

Mário (16), 24 years old, single

The house I live in belongs to my parents. As far as I can see, the house is going to be mine [the emphasis is ours]. That is it, I will stay were I am. (...) I would like to stay close to him husband. But, because of the age of my mother, you have to take everything into consideration, don’t you? One day, if my mother were to die or something like that, I would like to go there where her husband works and lives or if he could move closer to here on the basis of a job transfer.

Rita (44), 20 years old, married

In fact, young people may be married and still live with their parents, extending their economic inter-dependence for a longer period of time. Both the increase in the life expectancy of the elderly and the instability of the labour market in terms of job security may have reinforced this inter-dependency between household members.

2.3 EDUCATION AND TRAINING SYSTEMS: POOR PERFORMANCE

If the level of schooling of the Portuguese is generally low, the level in SMP, in particular, is even lower. In 1991, 23% of the population had not been to school (children to the age of 5, however, are included in this figure) and only 14% had attended middle school above the 6th grade (normally completed at 12-13 years of age). The proportion of the population that cannot read or write is one of the highest in the whole Douro region, only exceeded by four other concelhos in the extreme east of the region (close to the Spanish border) with a population much more aged than that of SMP, and therefore with a higher expected rate of illiteracy. There are substantial gender differences in the level of formal education it is worth noting that 2/3 of illiterates are women, or, to put it in a more meaningful way, almost one fourth of women are illiterate and only about one fifth attended more than four years of formal education.

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Table 2.10 - Schooling levels in SMP in 1991 (percentage)

Number of years in school Men Women Total0 19.0 27.9 23.51-4 52.0 49.9 50.95-6 13.9 9.3 11.67-12 12.8 10.3 11.6>12 2.3 2.5 2.4

Illiteracy Rate* 12.8 23.8 18.5* Population over 10 years old that cannot read nor writeSource: INE, 1991 Census

In SMP only the compulsory nine years of education is provided, in the conventional three levels of schooling, called ciclos. This means that, in order to complete the secondary phase of schooling, i.e. to compete for a place in higher education, it is necessary to go to school in Régua, Vila Real, or Lamego. In 1995/96, 1,054 students were registered in the concelho's schools distributed in the following way:

Table 2.11 - School attendance in SMP, 1995/96

Levels of schooling(school years)

Number of students

StudentsPer Year

Cycle I: 1-4 539 135Cycle II: 5-6 222 111Cycle III: 7-9 193 98Total 1,054 117

Source: INE, Annual Statistics 1998

Student attendance declines significantly from the primary to the middle to the secondary phase of school, which means that before compulsory schooling is completed, many students will have dropped out due to persistent failure to pass the minimum required courses to complete the academic year. Failure rates in primary school were, in the 1991/92 academic year, 44% in SMP, compared to an average of 23% for Douro and 26% for the Norte NUT. On the other hand, the failure rates in the 5th and 6th grades (second cycle) were significantly lower, and very similar – in the range of 12% to 14% – at all territorial levels,.

Global data from SMP’s single secondary school, which have recently been collected12, indicate that in the last two decades (1980-2000) nearly 10% of those who have completed the 9th year do not register in the 10th grade in the academic year immediately following (Table 2.8.). Among those who do go on, a limited number of students attend the so-called ensino técnico-

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profissional (hereafter designated as professional education). This type of education is rather popular among students in their late teens for a number of good reasons: it is more vocational and practice-oriented and therefore easier to attend. Moreover it provides direct financial support to the students involved. Both the key informants and the institutional actors corroborated the popularity of these courses and consider students’ performance to be generally good. However, the number of students attending these type of schools is low. Indeed, the number of “professional” students out of the total of equivalent secondary school students (10th –12th grade) is the second lowest in the Northern Region13.

Two key informants who are teachers in the secondary school of SMP felt that the drop out after the compulsory education level (9th/10th grade) results to a large extent from the limited income of rural households. Since continuing students have to travel to Vila Real or Régua, there are additional expenses both in terms of books, stationary, other equipment, as well as increased transport and food costs. At this age, too, the demand for and the cost of appropriate i.e. fashionable, clothing may also imply a substantial drain on family incomes.

Table 2.12 - Number of students on the 9th year and 10th year (SMP school and elsewhere) 1980-2000

Periods

Registered in the 9th year (SMP)

Completed the 9th year (SMP)

Registered in the 10th year

Nº % Nº % Nº %1980/81 - 1984/85 186 100 137 73.7 130 94.91985/86 - 1989/90 258 100 185 71.7 156 84.31990/91 - 1994/95 413 100 353 85.5 318 90.11995/96 - 1999/00 394 100 333 84.5 305 91.6Total 1,251 100 1,008 80.6 909 90.2

Source: The management committee of the SMP secondary school, 2000

With SMP being a rather poor area, families with economic difficulties are common. Children of such families may benefit from state grants during compulsory education, but not for the 10th – 12th grade pre-university years. The data collected in the SMP secondary school show that nearly 3/4 of the total students enrolled there are beneficiaries of such grants. Those who get the higher levels of financial support amount to over 2/3.

Table 2.13 - Social support in the academic year 1999-2000

Cycles in Students with no social

Type A Students

Type B Students

Total Students benefiting

Total of Students

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secondary education

supportfrom social

supportNº % Nº % Nº % Nº % Nº %

Cycle II 36 19.8 137 75.3 9 4.9 146 80.2 182 100Cycle III 64 26.2 167 68.5 13 5.3 180 73.8 244 100Total 100 23.5 304 71.3 22 5.2 326 76.5 426 100

Source: The management committee of the SMP secondary school, 2000. Note: Type A students are those most in need of social support. Their expenses with food, transport and books are financially supported. Type B students have some of their costs partially financed.

With regard to professional training, in the Douro there are many organisations and numerous different types of courses supplied. First, there are two basic types of governmental training courses: cursos de aprendizagem em alternância (“rotational learning” between Job Centre and enterprises) and cursos de qualificação (“qualification courses”). The former lasts for three years and if the trainee succeeds, then he/she may get the equivalence to the 9th or 12th grade of the secondary school, depending upon his/her formal level of education at the entrance of the training period. The trainees also benefit from a training grant. The second type lasts for one year and a grant is also provided. This amounts to a little over the national minimum wage. Both courses are usually provided in Vila Real (Centro de Formação Profissional de Constantim).

The IEFP - Instituto do Emprego e da Formação Profissional (Institute for Employment and Professional Training) associated with the IPJ - Instituto Português da Juventude (Portuguese Youth Institute) also promotes training courses in computing. NERVIR – Núcleo Empresarial de Vila Real (the Entrepreneurial Association of the District of Vila Real) as well as other entrepreneurial associations (e.g. ACIR, Associação Comercial e Industrial da Régua) may also offer training courses for youth. Private enterprises may be added to the list above. Just a few SMP youngsters resorted to courses given by private firms, and complaints were raised in the interviews on this issue: one of the interviewees attended one computing course organised by a private firm where there was only one computer for four youngsters. A further two respondents referred to a particular case of fraud. They paid full course fees, but the lessons were interrupted prematurely. No reimbursement was provided to them.

Table 2.14 - Distribution of trainees resident in SMP in 1999, by gender

Institutions Type of Course Male Female

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IEFP Rotational earning 13 8Qualification 4 5

IEFP/IPJ Computing 7 14NERVIR Computing 2

Note: all courses occurred in Vila Real with the exception of the computing course administered by the IEFP/IPJ, which took place both in SMP and Vila Real

As to 1999 we have tried to sum up the total number of training courses offered to youth from SMP by “the main suppliers”. The figures are shown in Table 2.14, while in Table 2.15 we specify the designations of the IEFP courses.

Table 2.15 - Distribution of trainees at the IEFP, by type of course and gender

Type of Course Course Designation Male Female

Rotational Learning (Centre/firms)

Hairdressers 2Shop Employees 1Electronics Technicians 3Management and Accountancy Technicians 2 1Hotel Receptionists 3Cooks/chefs 1 1Waiters 1Computer Technicians 2Building trades electrician 2Automobile Mechanics 1Basic Metalwork Technicians 1

Qualification

Car Mechanic 1Audio Video and TV Technicians 2Management and Accountancy Technicians 1Automobile Spray Painter 1Educational Action 1Community and Family Support 3

We will return to the issue of professional training later, but three general points may be made now. In spite of the diversity of public and private organisations involved in the “business” of professional training, the “menu” offered tends to be rather limited and irregular. Secretarial and computing training predominate. Due to both these features and the possible requirement that a ‘patron’ may have to intervene on one’s behalf, access by SMP youth to the courses available seems particularly difficult, at least from the viewpoint of those individually concerned. Finally, both the adequacy and quality of the training provided calls for evaluation.

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2.4 ECONOMY, EMPLOYMENT AND CLIENTELISM

According to the 1991 Population Census, economic activity in SMP is dominated by the primary sector, namely vineyard production. The figures markedly differ from those relating to the Douro, where services tend to dominate and depart even more from the situation characterising Northern Portugal (see Table 2.12), well-known for the substantial industrial concentration in its western (i.e. coastal) half.

Women’s participation in SMP's economic activities (as conventionally measured) is low, compared with the Northern region. It can be seen from Table 2.16 that their participation is lower than that of men in all sectors of activity, with their absence being even more marked in manufacturing, which means in addition to this sector being of minimal importance in the study area, the employment it creates is essentially masculine.

Table 2.16 - Economic activity by sector in 1991 (percent)

SMP Douro North

Economic activity by SectorPrimary 47.4 35.0 10.6Secondary 20.7 21.3 49.4Tertiary 31.9 43.7 40.0

Sectoral share of female economic activity (a) 28.2 34.1 41.8Primary 24.7 26.2 38.8Secondary 12.4 12.2 37.6Tertiary 38.4 37.6 46.2

(a) (Nº of economically active women / Active Pop.) x 100Source: INE 1991 Census

As already mentioned, land-use is dominated by agriculture, with 60% of the area of the concelho being land of agricultural potential, 76% of which is currently in production, resulting in a level of agricultural land-use of 45% of the area of the concelho, a figure which exceeds the average for the Douro NUT as a whole (37.5%) (1989 data). It is important to note that 85% of SMP's agricultural land consists of long-established vineyards, planted on narrow terraces (socalcos) typically on very steep terrain. Terraced valleys are a characteristic feature of this region and, in addition to the Port produced from the grapes grown in the region, constitute an important part of the region’s value and potential as a tourist attraction. SMP, in particular in its south-eastern freguesias (parishes), has the largest concentration of vineyards in the zone best known for its production of grapes for Port wine. The diversification of the SMP wine production,

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particularly into other high quality table wines, has been developed, particularly over the last decade. Obviously, this has important consequences for the structure of the economically active population.

Thus, it is not surprising that in SMP the “big employer” is represented by the Wine Co-operative (the official name is Caves Santa Marta), which groups together three wine processing plants located respectively in SMP, Mondrões and Cumieira. The membership amounts to nearly 2400 associates and, in 1999, the sales volume was around ¤16 million. The number of permanent employees of the Wine Co-operative totals 84 individuals and during the annual harvest almost the same amount of people again are contracted as wage-workers. In brief, the SMP wine co-operative figures as the biggest enterprise of the Vila Real District14.

Locally, the Council is perceived as the second largest source of employment, but the direct contracting of permanent employees is obviously very limited. Six of these posts (4 administrative auxiliary staff and 2 general services) were created recently and the competitive “stampede” for places, in which more than 100 people applied for these posts, attracted much notice and comment. Empreiteiros (small scale entrepreneurs) may recruit wage workers for construction, viticulture and the felling of pine trees, but these job opportunities are relatively uncertain. Often, these labourers come from the more distant highland areas.

Obviously, in SMP there are also the self-employed, with their workshops and retail outlets, as well as those employed in small-scale enterprises, such as cafés. Any outside observer becomes immediately conscious of the family nature and atmosphere of all these petty businesses. A café waiter interviewed, usually plays cards with his boss and another respondent, a kiosk counter girl, pictured her work relationships as follows:

It is as if I was more the boss than the employee, so to speak.

Zulmira, 22 years old

At the local level, the data collected about the occupational status of the respondents’ parents (Table 2.13) is consistent with the general picture shown above, in spite of the way in which the sample was constituted. Retired people plus those involved in housekeeping, manual jobs, and farming account for almost 2/3 of the total.

The local labour market is extremely limited in supplying stable work places and it should be stressed that, in the local psyche and culture, the idea that clientelism, patronage or ‘partisanship’ is part and parcel of accessing to a job is deeply rooted. A key informant referred to this

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ingrained notion as follows:

The significance of ‘cunha15’[influence, “jobs for the boys”] – at least in psychological terms – is that, people, including young people, have got it into their heads that you won’t get anywhere in life without ‘knowing someone’, and that this applies to all aspects of Portuguese society. It’s bound to have an effect on the way people operate.

Obviously, patrons may be scarce too, and their positions and lobbying power is variable, but practically all respondents underlined their crucial function in the process of getting a job. Indeed, out of 46 youngsters, only three of them [(22) (35) (44)] were sceptical about patrons’ effective influence, but it is also worth mentioning that a further three interviewees [(08) (09) (25)] suggested that this well-established practice, along with the general perception that it plays a key role, is on the increase. Undoubtedly, to pull a few strings to find a job is normal – more and more so.

Table 2.17 - Occupational status of SMP respondent’s parents

Type of occupation Father MotherHousekeeping - 21Unskilled manual 8 7Self-employed 9 3Skilled manual 6 1Farmer 3 3Retired 1 5Service job 4 1Desk worker 1 2Employed (travelling) 3 -Supervisor 2 -Business 2 -Middle management - 1Unemployed 1 1n.a.* 6 1Total 40 45*Note: Deceased (most of the cases) or unknown.Source: Fieldwork interviews, SMP, 1999-2000

2.5 SOCIAL WELFARE: SCANTY PENSIONS AND GRANTS THAT BARELY ALLEVIATE POVERTY

At the end of 1997 2,623 pensioners were registered in SMP, corresponding to almost 27% of the resident population, a figure close to that of the Douro as a whole, and significantly higher than that of the Northern region (Table 2.14).

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Table 2.18 - Pensioners and pension levels (1997)

SMP Douro NorthPensioners as % of resident population 26.8 26.5 21.4Annual Average Pension (Euro) 1,702 1,752 2,113

Source: INE, Annual Statistics 1998

In recent years (1995-97) the number of pensioners in SMP has decreased slightly (1% per year), which means that the number of pensioners that die is not fully compensated for by the number of people who become eligible for pensions.

The so-called “poverty pensions” received by the elderly in Portugal are a serious problem yet to be seriously tackled and, in areas where peasants and agricultural workers still constitute the majority or a significant part of the population, the elderly typically "enjoy" a truly miserable quality of life. Furthermore, in the study area, due to the low levels of contributions in both agricultural wage employment and small scale farming, the average pension is 20% lower than those received, on average, in the Northern region as a whole, making SMP, in this respect, one of the worst concelhos in the Douro region. These circumstances may reinforce some youngsters’ practices, such as the sharing of their own income and their provision of “social services” to the old parents. We have alluded to those practices above and we will turn to them below.

In Portugal, the GMI was designed to promote the social inclusion of the poorest among the poor and it has only recently been implemented. It presupposes a sort of a “negotiated contract” between the benefit-receiving family and the social services, in order to achieve the goal of social inclusion. The resumption of schooling or training, for instance, may be proposed to family members. In SMP, this social policy measure covers nearly 6% of resident families, benefiting nearly 500 individuals (Table 2.15). At the Vila Real District level, SMP occupies an almost average position.

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Table 2.19 - Beneficiaries of GMI in the District of Vila Real

Concelhos

Total resident

families(1)

Beneficiaries of GMI(2) % of family units

benefiting from the

GMI

Nº of family

unitsNº of

people

Nº of people per family unit

Alijó 4426 211 656 3.1 4.8Boticas 2161 281 714 2.5 13.0Chaves 11,153 757 2,164 2.9 6.8Mesão Frio 1405 178 530 3.0 12.7Mondim Basto 2190 220 669 3.0 10.0Montalegre 4175 204 532 2.6 4.9Murça 1984 150 485 3.2 7.6Peso da Régua 5488 516 1,613 3.1 9.4Ribeira de Pena 2116 287 798 2.8 13.6Sabrosa 2045 121 376 3.1 5.9SMP 2609 153 479 3.1 5.9Valpaços 6088 602 1,669 2.8 9.9V. P. Aguiar 4501 359 1,036 2.9 8.0Vila Real 12,190 521 1,528 2.9 4.3Total 62,531 4,560 13,249 2.9 7.3

(1) Source: INE, Population Census, 1991.(2) Source: Centro Regional de Segurança Social Norte, Serviço Sub-regional de Vila Real

Our sample did not include any young people benefiting from the GMI, but after the fieldwork had been completed, one girl that had been interviewed became a beneficiary of this policy measure. Her occupational training programme ended in December, 1999, and in March, 2000, she started to receive a grant of approximately ¤ 60. By July, 2000 the grant had grown to nearly ¤ 140. As part of the mentioned social inclusion contract she will attend a childcare training course, which will take place only next year.

According to one of our key informants, a social worker knowledgeable about the implementation of the GMI, this measure has allowed the satisfaction of “the most basic needs” of the SMP concerned families. She also associated some of these families with problems of alcoholism – both among parents and youngsters. This factor obviously undermines both family harmony and youngsters’ upbringing. It is not rare to hear people expressing fear with regard to young people’s education due to their parents’ or their own alcohol abuse.

As mentioned above, children and youth of families with economic difficulties (not necessarily receiving the GMI) receive social support for the period of compulsory education. It is also worth passing on an

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observation made by one of our key informants, a SMP secondary school teacher: many parents send their youngsters to school even when they are ill, because they are sure that the school personnel will deal with the problem, gaining faster access to the medical centre than otherwise would have been the case.

2.6 PURCHASING POWER AND CULTURAL SERVICES: PAUCITY IS THE RULE

Portugal’s National Statistical Office constructs a Purchasing Power Index for the concelho level, using a set of variables relating to wealth creation, consumption and living conditions. According to the latest published figures, which refer to the situation in 1995, SMP was among the 20 poorest of all 305 Portuguese concelhos. Compared to the Portuguese average (100), SMP had an index of 36, and the averages for the Douro and the Northern region were of 51 and 83, respectively. These figures eloquently describe the poor standard of living of most families in the concelho: clearly, SMP can count itself among the poorest of the poor in Portugal.

With regard to living conditions, which may have improved to a certain extent since the data were published, some indicators may be provided: in 1991, 96% of the families had electricity in their homes but only 73% had water supplied by public services. Sanitation provided by the public sector was very limited: only 21% of the families had access to this service16.

The data concerning the youth interviewed (16 to 25 years old) is obviously of a very specific nature, but it helps to underline the poor economic conditions existing at the local level. Respondents were asked to state their monthly income before tax. First, there are 10 people who have no income: five full-time students and five of the unemployed people. There is only a case of someone earning more than ¤ 600, while the majority (amounting to 24 individuals) classify themselves in the ¤ 300-600 band. Eleven people earn less than € 300, 5 of whom are unemployed, 5 have a service job and the other one is an unskilled manual worker. It should be noted that people in this band earn less than the minimum legal wage and women are particularly disadvantaged in this respect, since half of the females interviewed receive wages below the national minimum wage.

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Table 2.20 - Monthly Income (before tax) in Euros, by gender

Class of income Male FemaleNo income 8 2Under €300 11€300 - 599 13 11€600 - 1049 1Total 22 24Source: Fieldwork interviews, SMP, 1999-2000

Regarding the receipt of financial support or other benefits from any entity, 35 respondents admitted receiving support from the family and 10 from their employers (all of whom work in service jobs). None of the respondents was in receipt of financial aid from the Government or from friends.

Among the local youngsters there is the general perception that the area of SMP is beautiful, peaceful and a nice place to live, but that you cannot rely on scenery for a living. Despite these natural amenities and the reduced income of the youngsters of SMP, most of them feel the need to have access to some services, particularly those related to cultural activities, such as cinema, theatre, clubs, bars, discos, etc., which are missing locally and only available in nearby cities (Vila Real and Lamego). When questioned about how they spend their spare time in SMP the main answer is “doing nothing!” or “here there are only cafés”. This first answer is common not only with young people from rural areas but also with those from urban areas. In fact, a study undertaken by Pais (1996) with young people from an urban area, provides this same answer “Doing nothing represents one of the main characteristics of youth culture. Thus, to speak, to talk, to be with friends simply for the pleasure of their company, represents one of the most common forms of “doing nothing”.

Nevertheless, some interviewees feel that young people from other cities have opportunities that they do not, a disadvantage that influences their own lives. In the second focus groups we listened to a discussion on what should be done in SMP to provide more ‘spare time’ facilities for young people. The main reaction was that in SMP the only existing facilities are cafés, which, after a while bores youngsters. Most of the youth feel the need for a disco, or a bar where they can go and hang out with their friends. They usually need to go to the nearby urban centres to meet this social need. Thus, they are aware that other youngsters have greater access to cultural facilities. As Rosa (09) put it

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In Porto, there is everything and even more; here we have nothing. That’s the way it is. We have nothing. We are poor relatives. This is why they say that we are “mócótós” colloquial Portuguese to express the idea of someone who understands/knows nothing and they are right, in a way. Because we want to go to the cinema, or we go to Vila Real or we go to Lamego. It is very far away. At night it is not possible. The roads are also not so good. To the theatre... I don’t even know where it is. (...) For shopping I have to go to Régua or Vila Real, but there isn’t much there either.

The main argument against the existence in SMP of a disco or night bar is the scarcity of land on which to build. It is worth noting that most of the land is used for vineyards, which means that it constitutes part of the “national agricultural reserve” and therefore cannot be constructed on. Young people are aware of this “national” limitation but still mention that there are available buildings that easily could be adapted to become a convivial place for youth to meet. The feeling they have regarding this lack of facilities is that adults, in general, are not happy with the establishment of a disco in SMP, due essentially to the noise created. Even though young people mentioned the lack of social and cultural facilities as a disadvantage of living in SMP, the problem is somewhat minimised due to the fairly ready access they have to vehicles.

2.7 POLITICS: LOCAL PARTICIPATION AND DUALITY

The participation of the youth in SMP’s politics is dealt with later, and it is quite legitimately presented as a paradox. However, in the present chapter it is appropriate to present a few key features on politics, both at the national and local level.

It is worth noting that, in Portugal, political participation is essentially reduced to the local and national level. This is so because there are no regional parliaments, except in the cases of the autonomous island regions of Madeira and the Azores. In SMP, the local elections attract higher levels of popular participation than the parliamentary (i.e. national) ones. Some figures17 illustrate this point: the percentage of voters in the parliamentary elections of 1991, 1995 and 1999 was 66%, 64%, 59%, respectively, while the percentage of voters in 1993 and 1997 for the local elections was 73% and 74%.

These data may be interpreted as a sign of what is usually seen as common knowledge: local politics is much more candidate- or person-centred and/or

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territory-based than the national politics. In other words, ideology would seem to be relatively less valued at the local level. Indeed, ‘familism’, ‘partisanship’ and clientelism would have greater value and significance. This is also the view of one of our key-informants, a priest, who referred to local political membership in these terms:

The type of ‘cunha’ that operates here along political lines is a bit like helping out someone who supports the same football team. So people are inclined to help more out of shared local allegiances than out of any sort of real ideological solidarity”.

Another prominent feature of the local politics is the reinforcement of the political duality. That is, the smallest parties get lower representation at the local elections as compared to their local position at the national level elections. For example, the two parties at the extremes of the political spectrum (CDS, the Social Democratic Centre and PCP, the Portuguese Communist Party) received in SMP respectively 3,4% and 1,7% of the votes (1993) and 0,7% and 0,7 of the votes (1997), while their quota in the parliamentary elections of 1991, 1995 and 1999 was respectively 4,3%, 5,1%, 4,4% (CDS) and 2,0%, 1,6%, 1,6% (PCP).

Finally, it should be said that in SMP the PS (the Socialist Party) is in office, and has been since 1989, that is, it has been in power for more than one decade. The number of municipal mandates held by the main parties has been roughly balanced throughout time: so far, three for the Socialist Party and two for the PSD (the Social Democratic Party).

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Chapter 3

Santa Marta de Penaguião: six local paradoxes

3.1 PARADOX ONE: THE UBIQUITOUS VINEYARD VERSUS THE GENERALISED REJECTION OF FARM EMPLOYMENT

One of the first and principal paradoxes that emerges from the research work may be expressed in these terms: on the one hand, viticulture is a predominant trait of the local economy; on the other hand, youth do not perceive it either as an attractive business to enter, nor as an interesting employment opportunity. This is an uncontroversial issue, fully and emphatically recognised by key-informants, and by both male and female interviewees, for instance: (12) (14) (15) (28) (31) (34) (35) (38) (40) (42) (44). Rui (15), one of these male youngsters, summed up the point as follows:

You may perhaps work a few days to earn some pocket money, or to purchase something you really want [e.g. a small motorbike]. Today, nobody likes farm work. Nobody wants to do this type of work. There’s no future for anyone in vineyards.

For a very limited number of cases, this general statement has to be qualified somewhat. Only one respondent (11), who had received specific training in farming in the vocational stream of secondary education (provided by the Rodo School, in nearby Régua), spontaneously expressed any appreciation of viticulture. However, he has a junior administrative position in the Local Council, and when pressed, he failed to clarify his views much further. When it was suggested that he was perhaps the first interviewee to mention any pleasure derived from working in the vineyards, he replied

I like the vineyards, but wait a minute — for me, it’s different. I like the vineyards because I go there at the weekend, from time to time. Maybe, if the vineyard were my whole life, I wouldn’t like it so much. If it’s raining I don’t go, and if it’s too hot I don’t go either. You know… I do like the vineyard, but …

All the views mentioned above are also fully consistent with the behaviour of two respondents [(25) (40)] who participated recently in Young Farmer training courses. The first gave up after a month. The second applied

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himself to what he really likes doing: felling trees in the forest. He perceived the farmer training as a favour to his parents and to his brother. His failure to participate would have meant that a viticulture project submitted by his father, attracting a handsome subsidy, would not have been accepted, and the development of the family vineyard would have been foregone.

Although the physical landscape as well as the local economic scene is totally dominated by both vineyard and wine production activities, respondents as well as their friends and relatives tended to define a better future in terms of completely different jobs: for example, that of a veterinary surgeon (27), wood dealer (40), draughtsman (02), designer or radio announcer (23), dressmaker [(37, 43)], military service [(16) (20) (21) (22) (26)], child care [(07) (17) (18) (20)], nursing [(24, 26)], or shop assistant [(01) (25) (31) (33) (44)]. This is not to say that most of the interviewees are unfamiliar with viticulture or related activities. Indeed, they have typically provided some help during the summer holidays and particularly during the grape harvest, particularly in the local wine-processing units such as the SMP Wine Co-operative [(25) (29) (30) (41)]. Moreover, the Co-operative is seen as on of the main local employers and some youngsters acknowledge that it is even the symbol of Santa Marta, because of the widespread recognition of the high quality of its wines. Nevertheless, a rather common view was well expressed by Luzia (20):

Santa Marta is a hole. We are surrounded by vines. Vineyards, vineyards and more vineyards. There are very few employment opportunities here, and those that do become available are somehow already taken.

Several reasons contribute to the explanation of the supply-demand mismatch to which Luzia refers. First of all, broadly speaking, youth know very little about how to cultivate and manage vineyards properly. In general, they were neither socialised nor trained for such work. Secondly, youth have no, or no interest in, viticulture. It is seen as a possible source of “work”, but not “employment”, and certainly not “good employment”. More specifically, vineyards only offer very hard, unpleasant, irregular and under-paid work.

Today, in SMP, a permanent farm wage worker will get around 2400 escudos (under €12) per day, for a 5-day week, plus the minimum social benefits, while day labourers will get between 3500-4000 escudos (€17-20) and women 3000-3500 escudos (€15-17). Some permanent farm wage workers [.e.g. (42)] may increase their income a little by doing overtime on their Saturdays off, paid better at 5000 – 6000 escudos per day (€25-30).

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The grape harvests sometimes makes for higher daily wages: for instance, in 1999, Luisa (45) received 7500 escudos (€37). In brief, farm work is low paid work, with wages typically being equal to the national minimum wage (60,000 escudos/month, or a little under €300). The low wage, and workers’ consequent inability to paying social security contributions, and the irregular character of farm work, clearly justify why Rita (44), a married woman who works on several quintas (big Porto vineyards and wineries) as a casual wage labourer, considers herself as being long-term unemployed, and why she has been registered for several years at the Job Centre as seeking work.

Farm work is also seen as being undifferentiated throughout one’s working life, thus offering no career prospects. The rigours of farm labour are a hard fact, eloquently expressed in the vineyards’ rough paths, steep and stony slopes, the backbreaking grape harvesting baskets and the need to work whatever the weather. Hardship may be reinforced by local culture, since lighter tasks such as the cutting of grapes are not expected to be performed by men. Construction work is also hard but, compared to farm work is favoured by a good set of conditions, as Sebastião (14) remarked: many tasks are performed under cover, the work hours are more fixed, there is work regularly throughout the year, and some sort of career progression is possible (e.g. from a mason’s apprentice to a building contractor or construction entrepreneur).

Moreover, young people are understandably not inclined towards an economic activity that is devalued everywhere and by everyone: parents, both small landowners and former farm labourers push their sons into off-farm occupations; school tends to ignore local contexts and activities; TV more or less openly suggests that farming has already vanished. The low social prestige attached to farming is further reinforced if one’s role is that of a wage worker. This is no wonder, since the community’s collective memory stresses the past struggle to find even poorly paid work: often payment amounted to little more than a bowl of soup, and a sardine on a piece of bread. As one of the key-informants put it:

In fact, work in the vineyards was terrible, awful (...). No wonder vineyards were seen through a sardine head.

Surely, the old times are over: no longer the sardine head represents the remains of a miserable wage paid in kind. Situations unimaginable in the past can be frequently seen today – such as the farm wage worker arriving at the vineyard in his own (second-hand) car, carrying his own mobile phone. Social relationships have also changed profoundly. As another participant in the third focus group put it:

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It is tremendously difficult today to hire wage labourers for the vineyards. Landowners have to give them full and proper respect (...) otherwise, they run the risk of having no workers at all the next day or for the whole of the following week.

In spite of both the social change SMP has undergone over the last three decades, and the currently good results and prospects of the wine business, the collective memory remains vivid and resilient. Nowadays, in SMP, vineyard work is still presented as a “punishment”, particularly appropriate for those who fail at school. Most boys and girls wish to escape from it, but even though it may be used as a threat, we were also told that many mothers could not conceive of their daughters suffering such a punishment. Ana (18), a currently unemployed young woman from “outside”, married into a Santa Marta family and when she showed willingness to do farm work, was prevented by her husband. Both the status of her husband and of her father-in-law, locally considered a “rich man”, would have been deeply injured. Inês (05), a 23-year-old daughter of a well-off construction contractor stressed unequivocally this same point when she referred to her “shame” at having worked in the family vineyards when she was teenager.

Some informants who are involved to a certain extent in viticulture and may inherit vineyards at some distant point in the future, suggested that they could imagine a number of options with regard to this potential inheritance: to sell their share to other heirs and/or other interested parties; to continue farming as a part-time activity; or a combination of these possibilities. However, due to several factors, mainly the small size of many farms, viticulture tends to be perceived as an unattractive business. This appears to be so even among the three male interviewees who have received specific training in farming at secondary vocational level. One of them (11) has an administrative job with the Local Council, the second (38) wanted to be a forest ranger, and the third (41) hopes to become a policeman, or a sports teacher, after completing his military service. Paulo (26), a 17-year-old male student, who appeared familiar with the operation of financial markets, mentioned that these surely offer better opportunities for raising money much more rapidly than wine production. He sees himself as a future policeman, or nurse, but certainly not a part-time farmer. He also admitted the possibility of investing the money from the future sale of any land he inherits in the stock market. Girls also seem ready to sell the land they will inherit. Lúcia (23), for example, said:

My mother inherited vineyards, but I wouldn’t want to look after them myself. Absolutely not. So, I am already dropping hints to my parents so that they don’t harbour any illusions about it.

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So, it may be concluded that youngsters’ views, words and deeds concerning the future of the Douro contrast sharply with the discourse and actions of well-off adults, who stress the beauty, wealth and economic potential of the region. In reality, young people still living in SMP believe that vineyards hold no future for anyone.

3.2 PARADOX TWO: EDUCATION IS PRAISED BUT A LARGE PROPORTION OF YOUNGSTERS LEAVE PREMATURELY THE SCHOOL

This research work provided us with a second paradox. On the one hand, adults value education highly: parents, teachers, politicians, etc., recommend it both for its own sake and the advantages it affords young people. School attendance is generally presented as something positive and worthwhile for the future. In Portugal, this societal value is now sufficiently strong to have made 9 years of schooling compulsory, and to place the eradication of premature withdrawal from school among the most uncontroversial of policy targets. On the other hand, the school system seems to suffer from severe difficulties. A relatively significant rate of school failure and premature leaving has been observed. Our research also suggests strongly that, in many cases, school has been unable to detect not only interviewees’ own personal and social abilities and skills, but also their dreams and ambitions with regard to their future careers. Locally, specific counselling and professional guidance has been practically non-existent and so it is no wonder that young people had difficulty articulating many positive factors concerning their education, or education in general.

We will turn later to the issues of academic failure (i.e. repeating of the academic year) and young people’s lack of a clear sense of career plan or vocational direction but, we can confirm that in SMP, like elsewhere in Portugal18, there is a relatively large proportion of youngsters that drop out of school, some even without completing the compulsory education. Of the 46 youngsters interviewed, two [(01) (10)] left school without completing the 6th year of what was, until 1986/87, compulsory education, one of them having successfully ‘graduated’ via evening classes; another two [(07) (27)] left school before completing the (now compulsory) 9th year of education. Nearly 30% of those who had left school had not completed the last level of education for which they had been registered.

We may recall the global data from SMP’s single secondary school, which have recently been collected, indicating that in the period 1980-2000 nearly 10% of those who have completed the 9th year do not re-register in the 10th grade classes in the academic year immediately following (see Table

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2.12). It is also common knowledge that a considerable number of students of the 3rd cycle of the secondary school drop out (many have to change school and/or place of residence, see below) or interrupt their studies. Among the interviewees who have pursued further education beyond the 9th year, several [(15) (29) (40) (46)] reflected these trends.

It should be stressed that, regardless of the exit door used for leaving the school system, young people have usually faced relatively firm opposition from their parents, even when the family is faced with economic difficulties. In practically all cases, it was the son’s or daughter’s own wishes that won. They used various strategies to overcome their parents’ opposition: some resisted studying and gave up schooling as soon as they reached formal adult status (18 years); Elsa (19), for instance, followed a more drastic path: she achieved academic failure by absenting herself from class, a deliberate case of misbehaviour. The observation that there are youngsters that strongly wish to leave school prematurely, goes against the conventional view that a considerable number of “rural” parents have never bothered much about their kids’ schooling, or, even worse, that they encouraged or even required them to leave early. Only two school leavers could be included in this latter category [(01) (10)].

Several reasons may explain dropping out. First of all, there are the unexpected events. One dramatic case affected Mário (16): he witnessed the drowning of a very close classmate and her girlfriend in the river, after which he was unable to resume lessons. Premature school leaving may be explained by other unexpected events, particularly those associated with economic difficulties. These, plus a father’s death, a mother’s illness and an undesired pregnancy, for instance, explained why several respondents [(33) (42) (44) (18)] left school. Obviously, situations of this type always cause disturbance on home atmosphere and the family budget, this impact being particularly severe among poor households. Some youth from low-income families (large families, for instance) also dropped out of school prematurely (10), or very early (13), or before higher education, because they felt that the time to help the family had arrived. This was the case of Luzia (20) and her sister. It is worth noting that the Government provides grants to children with economic difficulties, but only during compulsory education. After that, i.e. during the 10th to 12th grades – the crucial period prior to higher education entry, parents have to support all education costs, consisting mainly of books, transport (secondary school) and also fees (university).

Dissatisfaction with school feeds low motivation to study, which is also a very powerful lever in the abandonment of formal education, and this feeling emerged rather extensively among the respondents. Of a total of 46,

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more than half expressed some form of dissatisfaction with the studies they had pursued and/or the school they had attended. The statements were also relatively emphatic and varied, that is, the dissatisfaction was expressed in quite different forms. The quotations presented below show how emphatic respondents complaints can be:

I left school when I was 11 or 12 years old. I completed the 4th grade. […] I never wanted to enrol myself in the 2nd cycle. I wanted to work but wasn’t old enough, so I stayed at home. […] I didn’t like school. I had thought of trying to finish the 4th year, but I started to have problem getting on with the teachers and from then on, I never wanted to continue.

Guida (27), 16 years old

[…] I finished 6th grade, but at evening classes. I never liked school. Never. [Question: Can you see yourself resuming studies in the future?]. No, no way.

Olga (01), 20 years old

I did not finish 7th grade. I didn’t want to study any longer. Honestly, I hated studying. If I had to choose again, I’d do the same.

Elsa (19), 24 years old

I completed 12th grade, but since the 9th I was only at school because my parents made me stay on. I was too young and I could not stay at home doing nothing. I was really fed up with studying. I had no great desire to go on, so I had no interest in the classes. Then I stopped.

Marília (17), 21 years old

It seems that to move from one school and or place to another feeds both students’ dissatisfaction and compounds their difficulties. The mobility of students occurs in two situations:

a) children that come from the smaller villages attend 4 years of primary school there, and then commute to SMP when they are around 10-11 years old, when they begin the second (2 year) cycle of compulsory education;

b) youngsters interested in further secondary education (3 years, from the 10th to the 12th grade) register in schools in nearby

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urban centres, Régua and Vila Real, or more rarely Lamego.

The Portuguese education system requires that after the compulsory 9th grade, students must choose specialise, that is, choose between certain “scientific areas”, which are not always available in all schools. Thus, it may happen that in a specific academic year, one of those areas may exist, for instance, in Lamego, but neither in Vila Real nor in Régua. Note, however, that since Régua and Vila Real are geographically close to SMP, young people from low-income families do not go to study elsewhere, even if their desired specialist area of study is not available in these two cities. Most youth from SMP prefer to study in Régua, essentially due to the existence of more transport facilities. Indeed, the option of attending school in Lamego is rare.

For some young people, changing to a school outside SMP constituted an extra pressure in terms of new daily routines, making new friends and adapting to a larger, unfamiliar and more competitive school environment. If this situation is associated with an inadequate selection of the educational stream to be followed (either by mistake, or by non-availability of a given specialisation), the youngster may feel him/herself lost, and the prerequisites for dropping out are in place. Inês (05), for instance, recalled her unhappy experience of changing school in following terms:

I didn’t like the place where I had to live. I didn’t like the [new] school, [... ]. It had nothing to do with me. I had always done sports at school, and I found myself in the biology lab, which did not appeal to me at all. I had to be still all the time.

The question of the proper selection of the educational stream to be followed is a major one and it has to be linked to its specific context: not only one’s likes and dislikes as well as peers’ influence, but also the lack of vocational guidance. Indeed, several interviewees mentioned explicitly that they had taken wrong educational branches [e.g. (12) (17) (32) (41)]. One of them, had chosen her option by mates’ pressure, thus corroborating the view of a key informant, a female teacher of the secondary school of SMP. She told us the following:

They [the youngsters] choose their options by their colleagues, to go in group with friends and, then, the Humanities and Sciences, that division that is commonly made: the students that have more difficulties in Maths go to Humanities.

Under the circumstances mentioned above, or similar ones, no wonder that some young people stop attending classes. Hanging out with friends, particularly under less strict local social control, becomes much more

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attractive than listening to teachers. Some of the respondents, particularly those who participated in the first focus group, stressed that most teachers were rather insensitive to this “turning point” in students’ lives. Inês (05), again, is rather critical concerning the prevailing behaviour of teachers:

The teachers should’ve monitored students more, even though there were so many of us… My previous sports teachers provided psychological counselling. Most of the [other, new] teachers don’t care about this sort of thing. If I didn’t look my normal self, my previous teachers would notice, try to talk to me, as friends, while now the great majority of them don’t seem concerned. They don’t care whether you’re happy or sad.

The interviewees of the first focus group also drew attention to other questions, such as the problem of poorly skilled teachers, the high number of courses and of teaching hours, inadequate evaluation exercises, and uninteresting school programmes. Courses are perceived as being too theoretical, not permitting students to learn subjects and skills that could direct them to future employment. For example, according to Mário (16) his teachers’ words were directed “at the ceiling” rather than the class, and Luisa (45), a 18 year old girl who has for several years failed to complete compulsory education (even though she has not yet dropped out), made this complaint:

My timetable is 31 hours of just looking at the teacher. We never have a practical class to explain things “Look, this is done this way, that is done that way” ... There is nothing of that sort, and 31 hours is time to do lots of things. And we do practically nothing.

In fact, Luisa’s case is symptomatic of the need to design and implement an alternative school system. She finds school inadequate to her needs: she wants to be a hairdresser, and the courses she attends are of no use in satisfying her dream. She found out through her family's friends that she could do a 3-year vocational (hairdressing) course organised by the Job Centre that would be equivalent to completing compulsory education. But twice she failed to gain access to this course. She believes that it was lack of cunha (influence, clientelism) that prevented her from getting on the course. Thus, understandably, her motivation to study is quite low.

Two key informants corroborated the bookish nature of schooling. They stated the following:

There should be, after a certain point, a certain diversification for those students for whom the type of study [...] does not tell

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them anything. [...] Some of the things they are learning does not tell them anything for their lives [...] some time ago there were the so called Industrial Schools and Commercial Schools, with a more practical vision.

Priest of SMP

Teaching is still very theoretical and they [the youngsters], more and more, want practical things.

Teacher of SMP secondary school

Clearly, low motivation to study may lead to academic failure, but it is essential to recognise that the reverse is also true. The data collected provided some examples of this. The first experience of failing an examination or failing to pass to the next year may also lead to dropping out:

I failed only one examination [a national-level one], just one course, I was on the borderline. I reacted badly to that failure.

Rosa (09), 20 years old

For me it was strange, I had never failed, and I lost motivation.

Rui, (15), 20 years old

The number of repeats of the school year experienced by the SMP interviewees is considerable, and this dramatic situation is fully consistent with the qualitative data collected on the general attitude of the respondents towards the schools they have attended. Taking into account the interviewees’ age and the grade achieved at the time of leaving school, we have estimated the number of repeats of school year per respondent. About 1/4 of the youngsters experienced what we can only call a “deadlock”: two extreme cases of interviewees, being “kept down” 7 and 8 times respectively [(31) (10)]; six cases with 5 failures each [(4) (5) (6) (18) (42) (45)] and four others with 4 failures each [(7) (15) (16) (35)]. Only three respondents [(26) (34) (44)] have experienced no failure at all over the course of their school career. Among those who have completed the 9th grade or less, the estimated average number of failures amounts to 3,3 per interviewee. For the rest, who went beyond that level, the rate is 2,2. The accumulation of repetitions of school years rapidly leads the youngsters to the strong feeling that they are “too old” to be in the school. Then, they see themselves as reaching “the working age”, and, consequently leave the school.

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The magnitude of these estimated results rules out any possibility of using “the learning difficulties” of the people concerned as the sole or major explanation of their academic failure and/or low motivation to study. The quotations below, relating to the interviewees’ demoralisation with the apparent gap between their own capabilities and the demands placed on them at school, may be no more than a posteriori rationalisations.

I was not clever. I didn’t have what it takes to study.

Sandra (07), 4th grade, 16 years old

Not everyone is capable of studying.

Vitória (02), 7th grade, 21 years old

I came to the conclusion that I should give up, as I did not have the abilities to go any further. I am very lazy.

Elisa (22), 9th grade, 19 years old

In spite of what may be an improved situation nowadays19, both the qualitative and quantitative data suggest that, at least in the past, the SMP schools have shown a lack of sensitivity to the general context (family and peer influence, economic conditions, etc.) and the specific situation (e.g. learning difficulties) in which their students find themselves. Very likely, no effective remedial measures were taken. This hypothesis is consistent with the view of a key informant, a teacher who has also management responsibilities. In the third focus group he stated the following:

The pupil is kept back and the next year he attends the same class. The school continues to offer him more of the same [programmes, methods, activities, etc. our emphasis] and he fails again to pass the year. After x years of eating the same dish [our emphasis], it’s obvious he’ll be saturated […] There are schools that have done wonderful work in recent years, satisfying the youngsters’ needs. There are others that have found it more difficult to come to terms with the practical changes required of them, and therefore they’ve keep on providing more of the same [our emphasis] perhaps in a disguised form. So, those who fail the year begin gradually to turn against school. […] School is unable to meet their youngsters’ diverse needs. Very often school offers precisely what their youngsters don’t want, just more of the same [again, our emphasis]. More of what runs counter to the youngster’s concerns and ambitions. After a while, he gets fed up and

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rejects school.

In the pathway to (un)employment, obviously school has a strong determining influence. Among the respondents who are currently in work, in general we found an impressively wide gap between what they evoke as their desired occupations and their current jobs, these latter being relatively modest. While there are some youth who seem relatively uncertain about their “dream occupations” [for instance, (03) (08) (29)], a great number of them are not. Among these, some are quite positive in their answers: cook (10), teacher [(05) (09)], draughtsman (02), barman (25), nurse (28) musician (30), bank employee (39), hairdresser (45), footballer (46). Some of these youth are even doing “reconnaissance work” in their proposed professions, or have already attempted to put their foot on the first rung of the occupational ladder [(05) (30) (39) (45) (46)], taking advantage of occasional jobs in the holidays, or leisure hours.

A few interviewees are already doing or are well on the way to becoming what they envisaged earlier in their lives and, therefore, they manifest satisfaction regarding their current occupation [(31) (33) (37) (34, after a period of unemployment)]. Some youngsters’ answers about their occupational ambitions are closely related to their current experience of work. For instance, Dulce (13) works on the counter at a photographer’s shop and would like to become a photographer herself; Carlos (28), an accountant, thinks of setting up his own enterprise in this field of work; Elsa (19), who works as a receptionist in a dental clinic, stated that she wishes to become a dentist. For Elsa this may be a case of over-ambition: she still has a long way to go, amounting to 11 more years of studies, and a difficult pathway to follow, since she has only got the 6th grade at present, and stated that she had not enjoyed studying in the 7th year.

The evidence collected strongly suggests that school is the very first place where youngsters come face to face with “the hard and cruel reality” of life. That is, it is there that some began a process of what we may call a "downward revision" of their initial dream. We can visualise this as a “ladder”, with childhood fantasies at the top, subsequent dreams lower down, current wishes and fair options lower still, until we reach the subject’s real occupation or profession at the bottom. Most young people find this downward revision perfectly normal in the sense that they have to adapt to the difficulties they encounter, and overcome them, even if this means not realising, or even ceasing to pursue, their dreams. This sense of being “realistic”, or “pragmatic”, seems to be rather widespread among the people studied. The conversation between Lauro (41) [male, 20 years old] and the interviewer, as well as other subsequent quotations, illustrates the point.

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[Question: Have the ideas you had about employment changed as time has gone by?”] More or less. I don't know, maybe. [“But how?”] I don't know really. Oh, yes. You start having difficulties at school and you say: Well, this is hard, I am no good in maths, so I can’t get where I want to go. So that’s it, we have to adapt and look at other alternatives [our emphasis].

Besides school, parents may influence, either openly or in a more subtle way, both the temporary and permanent occupational choices of their offspring. Interviewees mentioned this influence [e.g. (06) (27) (39) (40)], which may not only change over time but also may exert itself in opposite directions: either reinforcing the youngsters’ “career dream” or interim occupation [e.g. (05) (31) (45)], or pressurising them into taking alternative paths [e.g. (02) (22) (23)]. For example, Lucia (23) and Teresa (31), both employed as counter assistants in family shops, are very distinct cases:

At that time [of selecting a scientific area for further education] I had thought of taking Arts and Design. I wanted to but my mother wouldn’t let me. She said “Not Arts and Design – that’s something for little fools”. That’s it, that’s how she talked at the time. [Question: “So, you felt a bit discouraged, or not?”…] Yes, because I wasn’t going to attend school any further [i.e. above the 6th grade] if I was going to have to take a course I didn’t like. What for? Later I got used to the idea of working here [our emphasis]. At that time, you see, there was also a lack of information. Before the 9th grade, the teachers didn’t explain what’s possible if you leave at the end of the year, and what the course options are in the meantime, all that sort of thing. No, we just trooped in, registered, and so the big decisions were made then and there. […]

My father knew I liked this [being a shop assistant]. So, he enjoyed setting up the shop with me in mind, even though I have another sister. Anyway, he knew perfectly well that my dream has always been this […]. My childhood dream was to be behind a counter […] I like to welcome the clients […] What I do here is what I’d always wanted to do.

The above-mentioned pragmatic attitude of accommodating oneself to the current situation and the possible "downward revision" of the “wish ladder” can not be disconnected from other relatively prevalent attitudes: the attention youth pay, and the openness they display with regard to the job opportunities offered by the local market, the predisposition to leave and get a job elsewhere, and a gradualist, step-by-step approach to the

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resolution of their problems. So, there is not a simple and definite accommodation to situations. Youth may look at school-to-(un)employ-ment pathways from various angles. Moreover, the youngsters seem to adapt quite well to changes and difficulties without sacrificing their personal identity. Inês (05) is a clear example of this. She likes sports and would like to be a sports teacher and, even though at the present moment she is working, she has not given up her dream. This young woman has set up different paths on how to reconcile her dream with the circumstances that she has encountered so far or may encounter in the future.

I’ve started working because I am not just going to sit around watching my parents support me until I finish my course. I have to do something. .... As I’ve put off my [sports] course, I’ll have to go in another direction, in the meantime, won’t I? I left [school], that was my mistake, and so I’ll have to play it some other way. I’m working now, but I’m still studying, doing it little by little. I made a mistake and I know I have to do something else now, but I won’t get anywhere doing this [her present work]. This isn’t where I want to be, and I think you’re less productive if you don’t really like what you’re doing.

In this latter case, the girl is not only thinking of continuing her studies, but she has also been giving aerobics classes, and has analysed the possibility of opening a sportswear shop in SMP. So, one may say that her dream has not evaporated, or been definitively downgraded, but is only on stand-by.

At this point it seems fair to conclude that, in spite of adults’ formal and informal discourse concerning the high value of the formal education, the school system appears to be unprepared to identify and respond to the dreams and the legitimate, concrete aspirations of their “clients”, namely their students. No wonder that many of them look elsewhere for better “niches” in life.

3.3 PARADOX THREE: COMPLETING ONE’S EDUCATION IS GENERALLY SEEN AS A PRIME MEANS OF FINDING SATISFACTORY EMPLOYMENT, YET YOUTH IN SMP TEND TO HAVE RESERVATIONS ABOUT RETURNING TO SCHOOL

A third paradox clearly emerged from the data collected and may be expressed as follows. The prevailing research and policy discourse on economic development and employment stresses the need for well-educated and trained “human resources”. The boom in new technologies

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and associated globalisation processes have strongly reinforced the need for adults to have lifelong access to continuing education and skills updating so as to be able to survive in the “new economy”. In brief, nowadays it is widely accepted that there is virtually limitless need and demand for education. However, among youngsters in SMP there is a relatively common unwillingness to contemplate the continuation of or return to education. This trend is not the only one, but it is undoubtedly a strong one.

Indeed, to resume one’s education, particularly in the period immediately following school-leaving, is something that some interviewees (10%) exclude quite unequivocally. The following transcripts of interviews with Marília (17) and Xavier (40), with almost identical levels of educational attainment, illustrate the deep-seated nature of this resistance.

[Question: “Do you intend to resume studying?”] “No.” [“Never again?”] “No”. [“OK, but when you were younger, when you, for instance, were in the 10th grade, didn’t you think of pursuing higher education?”] “Yes. I even talked to my parents about it, but in the 12th grade I got completely fed up”. [“What kind of profession did you envisage then?”] “Primary school teacher”. [“So your academic plans changed … What really happened?”] “I was fed up with the school atmosphere. It was always the same thing over and over again”. [“Do you regret not having pursued the course for primary school teachers?] “No. I don’t regret it at all”. [“So, you don’t see yourself studying again?”] “No”.

I completed the 9th grade. After this, I registered for the 10th grade but 3 months later I gave up because I just couldn’t bear the teachers, they filled my head too much. [Question: “Don’t you like studying?”] “No”. [“Did your parents agree with your leaving?] “My parents, no. My parents wanted me to continue, but I’d had enough”. [“Might you go back to studying in the next few years?”] “No”. [“Never again?”] “No”. [“When you were younger, did you ever think of pursuing higher education?”] No. My only thought was to work with my father [a wood trader], nothing more”.

Many other respondents (nearly 60%) are not so unequivocal, but they do not see a return to studying as likely, at least within a relatively short term. For instance, Rita (44), 20 years old, married, a farm wage worker who also completed 9th grade, expressed her views as follows:

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I’m not thinking of resuming my studies in the future. If I could be sure it would get me a better job, I might, you know. If it meant going up in the world, sure, … but to study more just to stay a vineyard worker, wouldn’t be worth it.

It seems that the idea of becoming “educational returnees” does not appeal to these interviewees. They stress multiple obstacles, some of which may be combined:

- respondents disliked and/or are tired of school;

- they may see themselves as “lazy”, or “not made for school”;

- they may fear the reactions and comments of their peers;

- they may be afraid of disturbing an enjoyable, new life style;

- they may enjoy their current work;

- they may feel already settled into a (demanding) job;

- they may foresee no impact on their current employment;

- they may perceive no effect of education on their employability in the local labour market, which is extremely limited; and/or

- they may fear their inability to bear the cost (school fees and related costs).

It should be emphasised that, among those who have reservations about resuming education, we find both the least educated (premature school leavers included), and youth that have completed twelve years of education.

Nevertheless, the notion of resuming education appears to be accepted by nearly 1/3 of the respondents, although their predisposition to do so appears to be variable. Some see the possibility as a very short-term investment of their time and resources. More precisely, some stated that they only wished to finish the 9th or the 12th year of the secondary school, this being seen to a certain extent as a way of enlarging the opportunity of getting a training course, state-sponsored temporary employment, or even a job. It must be added that the answer among most of those who appear willing to go back to school tends to be of the kind, “Yes, if...”. That is, they indicate one or more of the following as specific pre-requisites:

- access to transport;

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- provision of child care;

- continued/resumed family support;

- post-work school timetable plus adequate travel time;

- likely positive effects on performance/pay in their current or some other employment;

- a course design that is well suited to their personal interests.

No major problem seems to exist with regard to transport constraints on resuming education. Indeed, one of the members of the third focus group argued that, although SMP public transport services are inefficient and non-existent in the evenings, those interested in attending evening adult education classes may benefit from a state-sponsored taxi service. The other pre-conditions mentioned above certainly constitute more serious obstacles, but, even so, youth attitudes, the style of courses, and the ultimate effects of resumption all emerge as critical issues. The view of a social worker who has close contact with poor families is rather pessimistic. In the third focus group she told the following:

When I’m trying to encourage the older children of families [...receiving the guaranteed minimum income...] or young couples of up to 25 years of age, to sign up for the social inclusion programme, right from the start they’ll say it’s impossible to take evening classes. Perhaps it’s because school has failed to meet their expectations, so to speak. But as a rule they refuse. And in many cases I’m talking about people that have not even completed primary education.

Particularly if we bear in mind that only half of our sample pursued their education beyond the 9th year of formal education, the testimonies of our interviewees certainly indicate that there is relatively strong trend against continuing education among the young people of Santa Marta. However, the relative weight of either negative or positive attitudes should not be overemphasised. This is due to a number of reasons, among which the following seem the most important.

On the one hand, it is very likely that respondents have in mind the “bad” or “good” school that they have experienced and some may have internalised the idea that education constitutes highly valued social “capital”. It is worth recalling (see above) that several respondents had a very unhappy and/or unsuccessful relationship with their school and that sometimes, the very first experience of academic failure brought on a

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disproportionate level of disappointment and subsequent dropping out of school. On the other hand, there is reason to believe that, under the appropriate set of conditions, some of the more sceptical respondents may return to school, at least with a view to achieving precise targets: the final year of compulsory schooling (9th grade), or the terminal 12th year of secondary school.

It is also worth repeating that a considerable number of the youngsters interviewed seem to have a very open-minded, pragmatic and adaptive attitude towards the job opportunities available. Besides the many youth with this crucial predisposition, several respondents showed some ambivalence, or at least qualified their negative answers to some extent. Some examples are provided below.

Who knows? … Everything depends upon what happens in the future. If I really needed to know different types of things, or it was necessary for changing jobs, I suppose I’d study again. But I’d always thought I’d stop at the 12th grade.

Céu (21), 19 years old, café waitress

I don’t believe I’d go back to studying now. For the job I have at present, I don’t need to.

Artur (02), 21 years old, butcher

I do not see myself studying again, but if a chance came up, I wouldn’t reject it out of hand. I’d need to think it over very carefully. I’d have to see whether or not the opportunity matched what I wanted.

Brígida (12), 19 years old, shop counter assistant

No, for the time being I don’t want to resume studying, but if it was necessary… yes ... but not now. In the future, if I had no other choice… But I’ve had sand years of schooling and I’m tired of it.

Cristina (34), 23 years old, recently unemployed sports teacher

I don’t know if I’d be able to open my books again. By nature I wasn’t much of a student. I don’t need to study now, so I don’t know how I’d feel about it … but I might go on, perhaps it would be better. I’m not greedy, but my current wage is hardly fair, and everyone like to earn good money ... it makes sense, doesn’t it?

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Eça (11), 23 years old

These affirmations need to be correlated with other information we collected. In spite of the recognition that access to employment is increasingly difficult everywhere, we did not find a youth “culture” (a relatively long-established and stable ways of perceiving and thinking, feeling and acting) of disillusionment or despair. Indeed, during the individual interviews, every youngster was asked to what decisions they would change if they could have their time over again. Practically all expressed contentment with almost all their past major decisions, although three [(05) (33) (45)] admitted that there was a specific step they had taken that may have been mistaken. Two girls would have liked to redefine inter-personal relationships (with mother and boyfriend, respectively) and a boy wondered whether he would have succeeded in becoming a professional footballer if he had had the courage to separate himself from the family when he was 13 year old (33). More meaningful yet it is the fact that nearly 3/4 of the interviewees mentioned (either spontaneously or after being questioned) that it was with regard to school that they would change something they had done (or left undone) in the past. Two of them [(32) (41)] would have opted for different vocational streams, some would have studied harder [(8) (11) (25) (28) (30)], and many thought they might like to have continued their education (be it formal, non-formal and/or professional).

It is very likely that this result is related to their realistic perception that access to employment is becoming increasingly difficult. If interviewees had finished earlier (i.e. with fewer years repeated) and with better marks, they believe (perhaps less realistically) that the chances of their getting employment or better positions would have been enhanced.

Bearing in mind all the data presented, we can conclude that it is not beyond the skills of policymakers, the teaching profession and young people themselves, to “square the circle” between the social value of education, on the on hand, and its under-valuation by the present generation of students, on the other, thereby promoting greater social inclusion. Undoubtedly, there are some signs of hope that this particular paradox can be resolved, but it is also clear that very hard and persistent work will be necessary.

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3.4 PARADOX FOUR: IN THEIR TRANSITION TO ADULTHOOD, THE SMP YOUNGSTERS BENEFIT MUCH MORE FROM THE “LOCAL” SUPPORT THAN FROM THE STATE APPARATUS AND THE MARKET

In SMP we observe another significant paradox: the multiple and intense local ways of assisting the rural youth in their transition to adulthood contrast vividly with the paucity of both the State interventionism and the market dynamics. Political rhetoric, discourses and documents on policies, institutional facilities and services rendered by civil servants emerge locally as having extremely small importance as compared to the concrete, constant action of one’s parents, kin, and other social networks.

A previous, cautionary note is needed though. It should be kept in mind that the rural youth are not only “beneficiaries” of help provided by parents, kin or other people from the local community or from elsewhere. No, they are not necessarily the recipients of an unequal exchange. They may be also “donors”, particularly as we observe that family ties are multidimensional and relatively strong. The interviewees, in general, and particularly those who participated in the first focus group, suggested that, on the one hand, the youth tend to be involved in the family’s major decision-making processes and, on the other hand, the youngsters look for advise mainly among the closest kin. To illustrate further, although briefly, the two-way relationship, it is sufficient to call attention to the following youngsters’ contributions.

Several interviewers [(10) (04) (06) (16) (20)] reported that, during a certain period of their life histories, they themselves became family income earners, sharing their work payments partially or even totally within their household. Some youngsters may provide social and medical services to their parents, who suffer from chronic illness [e.g. (13) (20)] or from the limitations associated to ageing. Zulmira (24), for example, gives psychological and domestic assistance to her old father, who is a widower. These “social services” rendered by the rural youth should not be underestimated, particularly if we keep in mind the local context. As we have mentioned above, while far from being among the concelhos of the Douro most affected by the relative growth of its aged population, the situation in SMP is nevertheless markedly more severe than is the case in the neighbouring counties.

Now, let us turn to the other side of the coin. According to the respondents, in SMP the family is practically “always” supportive and the help is extensive and total. They speak of “every kind of help”, both material and

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moral, and of “full support”, although this may be associated with advice of the kind: “I believe that you shall do this, but if you do otherwise, look, it is your problem. The life is yours, you are the one who knows what is best for you”. The interviewees’ expressions regarding the family support, particularly the closest kin, are strongly positive, emphatic and practically unanimous. Three examples are sufficient to illustrate the point:

Without them [the parents] I cannot imagine what it would be [the personal life].

Elsa (19), 24 years old

[I have had] the best support one might have had.

Sá (36), 18 years old

You mean… support from my parents? Yes. I always take it for granted.

Rute (08), 24 years old

Out of 46 youngsters interviewed, only one (10) belonged to a “dysfunctional family” and other two qualified a bit their response, reinforcing the general view as well. They stated the following:

[I have received] moral support. I never needed a lot of it.

Filipe (46), 22 years old

I don’t rely much on that. I believe that when we want to do anything it is wise not to rely upon someone. That may end up in an empty result.

Dulce (13), 24 years old

In which ways may the family help the youngsters in their transition to adulthood? To begin with, one cannot underestimate the board and lodging that the family normally provides to the youngsters, sometimes even if they are married. In this case, it is common that childcare may be also added to that pack, thus providing the opportunity for the young mother to work, even if this represents only a limited occupational placement. This is precisely the case of Ana (18), which is documented below:

[Question: is the work in your father-in-law’s shop paid work?] No, because, that is it, I eat there, I have lunch there, I have dinner there. And practically I have my life there, you see… I

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am not going to demand money from them [parents-in-law] because I have lunch there, I, my husband and my two kids as well.

[Question: And what about family’s pressure for being unemployed?] No. On the contrary, my mother-in-law and my father-in-law themselves tell me not to despair concerning work. They tell me that I need to take care of my little daughter. But it is also annoying because I also want to have money for my things and I have not got it, isn’t it?

Ana (18), 24 years old

Secondly, as mentioned above, one may say that, the data collected suggest that the parents generally stimulate their daughters and sons to pursue education, sometimes resorting to the “threat” of the work in the vineyards. Apparently, many have higher academic expectations for their sons and daughters than the teenagers themselves, while many of these do not see dropping out of school as a major mistake. However, it is necessary to add that most of the parents are unable to provide academic help to the youngsters due to their limited education. Moreover, one may take into consideration that the emigration of the parents, sisters, brothers and other relatives erodes to a certain extent the wordy stimuli. As one key informant, the priest, put it, any youngster may easily conclude:

My father and mother [or brother, or sister, etc.] go to France and earn more than the people that are going around [here] with a lot of studies.

The same key informant also noted that there are still parents that devaluate schooling, what is expressed in statements of this sort:

They [the youngsters] would rather work than wandering from here to there. What are they [those in power] going to give to all these people? Everyone is studying and then what?

Parents may play the role of advisers of youngsters’ projects (e.g. the acquisition of a car, the setting up of a business, etc.), but preferences of interaction may vary. For instance, while Inês (05) gets advise from her father and is unable to get it from her mother, Luisa (45) prefers the opposite interaction. Counselling, however, should not be overemphasised, because not only the youngsters may exert fully their autonomy but also, sometimes, no parents’ advice whatsoever is possible. For instance, referring to decisions such as to get a driving license and to change from one job to another Dulce (13) put forward the following:

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My mother never was able to give me an opinion. I have had to decide by myself. Everything I have done until now has been thought alone, although sometimes I felt embarrassed, indeed.

This interview transcript may reflect merely a feature of a mother’s personality or may be interpreted as a local social trait. Various informants speak of alcoholism (both of men and women) as a local problem and according to two key informants, a nurse and a priest, there are “some, not many” dysfunctional families. Regardless the eventual “professional biases” of these people, it is worth quoting them:

[…] the problems in SMP do not have to do with the lack of economic resources, but more with the situations … with the mental health, if one may call that, of the people who do not know how to manage [themselves]. Because, normally, they have alcohol habits […] that lead them to not knowing how to manage what they own.

[…] there are some family problems which are caused by the human poverty, so to speak. That is, there are people that humanly have not got a capacity to manage themselves in life, to assume the responsibilities of the decisions, then they find another person in all similar and then come all the problems that result from this: both the problems concerning the husband/wife relationship and the others related to the education of their kids.

Besides the role of advisers of youngsters’ projects, parents may function as psychological guarantors, so to speak. Before unexpected, unsuccessful and uncertain situations, like premature pregnancy, academic failure, lack of access to training and/or job opportunities, getting unemployed, etc. parents (as well as other relatives) may provide general emotional support and encouragement, what is particularly worthwhile then. The data holds the notion that, in SMP, parents’ supportive and tolerant attitudes are common. As an eventual sign of this we may say that practically all respondents, except three [(10) (13) (29)] felt no “family pressure” whatsoever as to looking harder for a job, or entering sooner into the labour market. Moreover, two interviewees [(29) (45)], who are still in school, know already that their parents are willing to support (at least partially) the financial costs of setting–up their envisaged businesses: respectively, a car reparation station and a hairdressing saloon. These data reinforce the initial view that in SMP the family seems to be rather helpful, both materially and psychologically.

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Parents’ and/or relatives’ own businesses (including vineyards) provide some temporary occupation for the youngsters [e.g. (05) (25) (29) (38) (39) (40)] not only during holidays, but also while they are unable to get a job. Even if the youngsters are not remunerated the social and psychological gains are undeniable: on the one hand, both the boredom of being unemployed and the sense of being unable to do something are diminished; on the other hand, some abilities and skills are acquired or trained. Eça’s (11) case is a very illustrative one. For nearly one year, between the completion of the military service and the admission in the Local Council as a civil servant, he helped his father and also one of his uncles acting as a driver. He often transported farm workers and he distributed daily pastry of his uncle’s shop. He also became a travelling salesman, selling publicity goods (agenda-books, pens, etc.) on commission. A second uncle provided him such an opportunity as well as the list of the usual clients of those goods. No wonder the ensuing psychological effect:

I never felt like an unemployed [person]. I had always something to do. That is it, in the morning I helped my uncle. If I wish to make some money I would take my publicity bag and could go around. And I had also many farm plots to where I could drive the wage workers… Then I only did not have a fixed employment.

Eça (11), 24 years old

Besides the pocket-money obtained, other effects, such as the development of positive attitudes, improvement of skills and the acquisition of work discipline are produced by occasional jobs. The youngsters that have had opportunities of this type value them, particularly the respective learning atmosphere. João (38), for example, stated the following:

It is important [to get the temporary work placements] because I start to prepare myself professionally for the future. I am getting accustomed to work. As I leave schooling, it would become less painful to begin to work. I will be used to it.

João (38), 19 years old

Parents are surely aware of the mentioned gains and, even when they are employees, they may look for occasional jobs for their kids in their own places of work. This is the case of Alberto’s (30) father, who works as a supervisor in the SMP Wine Co-operative. Sebastião’s mother (14) has had good relations with the owner of the local pharmacy and was able to negotiate a 6 months work contract for her son, while he was awaiting the military service. Rute’s (08) parents were able to find a work placement for

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her in a distant place: for one year she worked in Azores.

There are also parents particularly attentive to training opportunities, these being free of charge, or, on the contrary, providing some pocket money for the trainee. Some youngsters were strongly advised to take these opportunities [e.g. (06) (39) (40)]. There are also parents that may pay training courses (particularly, computing) to their sons and daughters [e.g. (08) (17) (32) (37) (41) (45)].

Besides paying training fees, there are other cases in which the youngsters receive more substantial financial help. For instance, Ana’s (18) parents-in-law have made available at low cost the land needed for building her house and Lúcia’s (23) parents offered her an apartment. Fidel’s (35) father acted as a guarantor for the acquisition of his van.

The contribution of the parents for one’s employment is sometimes very direct and significant. Parents may endow a business through the inheritance process (33), set up “joint ventures” with their offspring, either constituting micro-enterprises [(19) (31)], or enlarging the scale of their businesses [(23) (40)]. In any case, parents provide then direct employment opportunities or promote the self-employment of their descendants.

Some relatives may provide wage-work placements as well [(13) (27)] in their own shops, what appears to be a common practice. Marília (17) stressed very much this practice and Dulce (13), a current counter assistant in a photography shop for instance, has benefited from it. Their respective statements are the following:

even the enterprises that start businesses [here, in SMP] always employ just a secretary and this post is surely for some family member. Always the family, “cunha” and so…

Marília (17), 21 years old

Concerning the jobs I have got until now, the relatives were practically the only source of information. My current boss is a cousin of mine. The first one was also a cousin of mine. His wife had a baby and I became a baby-sitter three months later. They realized that I was at home doing nothing and called me. From then onwards, as one gets out of home, we build up contacts here and there, and so one keeps going.

Dulce (13), 24 years old

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As we have indicated above, in SMP the family support towards the youngsters is very significant, what is widely acknowledged by them. Most of the respondents share the view that their parents could not do better and the help provided may be characterised as solicitous, diverse and reliable, what contrasts vividly with the services rendered by the State apparatus (see next chapter). The data presented below reinforces this view.

In SMP one’s parents, close relatives, friends, neighbours and acquaintances may be highly instrumental in finding other type of jobs, besides those mentioned above, these being either temporary or permanent. First of all, they tend to be key mediators concerning information on job availability. They are the carriers of eventual good news issued by public or private sources and organisations. Concerning the current interviewees’ jobs, the source of information on its availability was the following:

- parents and close kin: (09) (11) (13) (24) (27)(30) (35);

- friends: (01) (05) (06) (07) (12) (16) (17) (18) (20) (21) (28);

- neighbours/acquaintances: (02) (03) (08) (10) (22) (32) (42) (43) (44).

It is worth noting that only Graça (37) got information and access to her current job directly. And her case was a very unusual one, indeed. She looked for the clothes shops in the yellow pages of the local telephone directory and phoned one shop, making herself available as a seamstress (see her pathway summary in the next chapter). That is, the usual pattern is to get information from alternative sources. The participants in the second focus group agreed that “the news flow from friends to friends” and thus “the news flow faster”.

Usually, parents and other relatives are willing to go much further than providing information and credentials to the youngsters. They may lobby the right persons in the right places, both directly or indirectly. This observation is fully corroborated by all sources of information. That is, not only by the youngsters interviewed but also by the key informants and members of the focus groups. Concerning these exercises of influence, one of the key-informants stated the following

In general, the parents, via their friends, approach the so called employers — Local Council, Wine Co-operative, well, there is not a lot to go — and they beg, commit themselves, mobilise acquaintances … [they may use] even political friendship.

From the interviewees’ and researchers’ perspective, both the family and the kinship look undoubtedly as reliable “structures” and sources of

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primary support for the youngsters. The social networks, particularly the family and the kin, do work, and they may be vital when unfortunate conditions emerge, such as becoming unemployed, ill and so on. Youngsters as well as adults have been cushioned against “market failures” and State inefficiencies and inaction through the family and kinship. Attitudes and visible behaviour as well as socialisation practices have inculcated the notion that the family is a safety net. This view is well documented by the case provided by Mário (16), which follows:

Mário’s (16) father was born in SMP and migrated (with his own father) to Porto in the mid 70’s. He met his wife there and Mário was born. He was an industrial wageworker until 1987, when ‘his’ factory went bankrupt and he became unemployed. Mário’s uncles (the brothers of his mother), who lived in Porto, offered Mário’s parents some material and emotional support, but similar behaviour occurred among the other relatives who lived in SMP. Mário’s father returned to the village with his family and he became a partner in the civil construction firm of one brother in law. Mário’s brother also found employment in this same firm, where he still continues. Mário’s father, on the contrary, moved recently into a cousin’s similar firm. Mário wants to get married and return to Porto with his wife. He is thinking that the uncles who live there and have their own enterprises will employ him and his wife. In brief, Mário’s father unemployment crisis was cushioned within the family. Almost 15 years later, Mário is planning his forthcoming life within that same frame.

We have seen above that, in general, the school that interviewees had known may be subjected to various types of criticisms. We will show below that most of the respondents do not speak very highly of the quality of the Job Centres either. In brief, one may hold that SMP youngsters perceive institutional facilities and public services as having little positive impact in their life histories. On the contrary, the family and other social networks are omnipresent and vital.

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3.5 PARADOX FIVE: RELATIVELY HIGH YOUTH PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE VERSUS OFFICIAL IGNORANCE OF THEIR IDEAS, ASPIRATIONS AND NEEDS

The number of paradoxes supplied by the field research in SMP is greater than we had thought, but there is another one to be presented below.

If we define participation in social and political life as, at least, membership and/or some degree of activity in local organisations, events and initiatives as well as in the youth branches of the political parties and in national political events, then, in general, the youth of SMP participate extensively. However, while some local organisations and groups are solidly established, others are rather ephemeral. As one girl put it:

Here [in SMP], things [groups and initiatives] may appear and then vanish suddenly.

One’s affiliation may be plural and last relatively short periods, but very few people may be defined as being completely “left out”. In fact, the vast majority of the respondents have had or have connections to one or more local organisations and/or initiatives. Among the currently “de-linked” we met one interviewee who is mourning his mother’s death, newcomers [(15) (18) (46)], those who have very demanding jobs (33) (35), or babies to take care of (19). Some youngsters explicitly mentioned that early marriage and starting a family in one’s late teens, for example, while it forced you to grow up and become responsible, it also tended to exclude you from political and social events. Elsa (19) has three babies and stressed the time constraints against any such political participation:

[…] it may be important for young people, but only if they manage to put something forward, you see? But they often give up and end up doing nothing […] Youngsters don’t stick with projects because many of them, like me and many others in SMP, get married and have kids very early – which ties you down very early. I’m not just talking about me, there are lots of cases here […] and as a result you don’t have time to participate […] because of children, home and work. You just have to give up one or the other. It’s impossible.

Beyond the usual constraints on political participation, the data collected from several sources suggest that SMP youth participation both in political and non-political initiatives and organisations is relatively high. Let us

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begin by looking at “non-political” activities.

At the time of the village feasts (which have a mixed nature, popular and religious) young people usually assume the role of mordomos, i.e. both the symbolic and practical role of co-organisers of that local event, typically in collaboration with the priest. They take particular responsibility for raising funds and are involved to some degree in the decision-making process. For example, at Carnival, girls and boys may organise the traditional events in which public criticism and mockery – both of each other and of those usually exempt due to their social status – is permitted. Youth may be also mobilised for setting-up various groups in the parishes of the Catholic Church: for example, scout groups, the church choir, catechism groups, and others devoted to community action, spiritual meditation, or raising social consciousness. Usually, in these groups, the activities of boys and girls are “managed” by adults (priests, nuns, parish choir conductors), but, through them, a few youngsters may develop organisational skills. At least five of our informants had been in the scouts, and three were responsible for catechism classes.

Other formal local organisations, such as the fire brigade, the hunting and fishing club, the banda filarmónica, cultural associations (some may include a theatre group or a music school) and sports clubs similarly call the attention, the involvement and energy of the youth [e.g. (06) (13) (14) (30) (36) (37)]. Participation in folk dance and folk music groups is very common. Football is rather popular and six respondents [(15) (33) (36) (38) (39) (42)] are currently enrolled as players in four different clubs. One of these (33) is the coach of the local children’s football team, Real Penaguião. Athletics, volleyball and cycling may also bring youth together (4, 22, 25, 29, 30). There is not the slightest hint of youth participation in any “regional”, “rural”, “local”, or “community” development association.

In brief, a close look at the interviewees’ answers indicate that cultural, religious and leisure activities organised by local institutions for youth, particularly in the main villages and – to a lesser extent, it should be stressed – in SMP town itself, are highly relevant as means of “social inclusion” and youth participation in local community life. This is also strongly corroborated by a key-informant, the local teacher who, for 24 years, has been involved in, and has followed the development of, cultural and sporting organisations in SMP.

While very little information emerged on specific youth involvement in decision-making processes in non-political organisations and initiatives, it did hint at a high degree of youth dependence on adults’ guidance and leadership. Youth may be full of ideas but appear to be simultaneously

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incapable of surmounting obstacles and of moving on to concrete action. If they succeed in doing so, these few youth-led initiatives tend to evaporate over time. And nobody knows precisely why.

Youth participation in political parties and events, as mentioned above, appears to be relatively high, exceeding the a priori expectations of the research team. The extent and degree of certain kinds of participation of rural youth in local politics seems significant and quite probably contributes towards the socialisation process of youth and their later fuller participation in local community life.

Certainly, most of the respondents are not members of political parties, and some of them had very little knowledge about parties’ local organisations. They feel distant from the parties and, during the interviews, their comments were rather sober, negative and abrupt, as the following statements illustrate:

I don’t like politics. I don’t care about it.

Marília (17), 21 years old

I dislike political parties.

Artur (02), 21 years old

Politics generate conflicts and this puts people off.

Fidel (35), 23 years old

Similarly, they also manifested widely held stereotypes concerning politicians.

They [the politicians] lie, and they lie well, and they never fulfil their promises.

Olga (01), 20 years old

Then [at the time of political campaigns] politicians promise a lot of things, but they never fulfil their promises.

Elsa (19), 24 years old

In spite of the above views, the interviewers met a surprisingly high number of respondents who acknowledged that they are, or had been, more or less formally linked to the local youth branches of the three major national political parties: PS (Socialist Party), PSD (Social Democratic Party) and the PCP (Portuguese Communist Party). The number of current

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members and ex-members amounts respectively to 8 and 3 [6 women, 5 men: (03) (05) (06) (09) (11) (16) (42) (43) (37) (38) (39)] out of 46 interviewees. Moreover, among the youth interviewed, three mentioned other friends that are members of political parties. It has to be said that 5 of these respondents qualified their position by saying that they are not formally enrolled in the party, nor do they participate in local meetings and, in one case, a young women actually admitted “disliking” politics, and that this “business” really meant nothing to her.

Four youngsters are particularly committed to local politics [(05) (09) (11) (16)]. They attend regular meetings of the youth branch of their parties and actively discuss ideas, sometimes even in the public sessions of the Local Council (municipal assembly). Three of them have been highly involved in party-sponsored cultural initiatives at the local level, such as a heavy-metal concert and a beauty contest. The annual “cultural week” at Santa Marta de Penaguião provides everyone with another occasion to cement one’s loyalty to one’s party. The national congresses of the parties and other large meetings in the major cities, which young members, in particular, are actively encouraged to attend, may provide similar opportunities. Prominent among the comments of the four young people mentioned above, are those of Rosa (09):

[Question: “Why do you participate in the youth branch of the political party?”] “Because I like it. I like politics”. [“What do you like about politics? Can you be more specific?”] “Because I like the struggle, the turmoil” [laughs] … [“Do you mean the turmoil of electoral campaigns?”] “No, no. I just like politics per se, It means something to me”. [“Do you like to participate?”] “Yes” [“And give your opinions?”] “Yes. And also because I feel a lot of things are wrong, too, mainly in my village. This upsets me, and I rebel against it. That was the main reason that led me to get involved” [in the youth branch of the political party]

Undoubtedly, youth participation is also of paramount importance in national political campaigns. This is common knowledge, but it was also corroborated by the key-informants and reflected to some extent in the interviews: while 9 interviewees emphasised unequivocally the large number and strong commitment of young people involved in national political elections and referenda [(16) (18) (21) (23) (33) (34) (36) (42) (43)], four respondents held the opposite view [(10) (29) (37) (40)]. At the time of major campaigns, the youngsters are the life-blood and foot soldiers of the party: they stick up posters and banners, join marches, attend dinners and conventions throughout the region. Moreover, some young men are put

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up as candidates in the Council elections. Thus the material, organisational and symbolic contribution as well as votes of youth cannot be under-estimated. As a young farm labourer, who is a member of the local “opposition” party, put it:

Youth do make a difference, because of their energy and strength. Youth means power and, those who lead the [political] parties, see all those youngsters as providing powerful backing to them.

Castro (42), male, 25 years old

Both interviewers and external observers sense that politics is part and parcel of SMP life. Two young women, who are party members, strongly suggested that party politics, in fact, divide local youth. They provided two exemplary indicators: (1) the exclusion of youngsters, ostensibly with other (family?) political affiliations, whether politically active or not, from a local scout group, dominated by members of the other political party; (2) local social interaction between youngsters with different party affiliations is limited, although it may take place if they meet elsewhere, for instance, in a pub or disco in Vila Real.

We have just established the first term of the paradox: the level of SMP youth participation in social and political life appears to be relatively high. At least, there are no signs indicating that it is lower than that of the common, adult citizen or that of “urban” youth. However — and this is the second term of the paradox — youngsters’ participation in political parties and events does not mean that they exert much influence and power, even locally.

Youth are involved in national election campaigns, but most of the respondents (both party and non party members) feel that they are confined to securing votes and to other intense activities at the peak of campaign. In between times, they are not taken seriously. As party candidates the young are insufficiently informed and kept “at the bottom of the list”. These positions are not conducive to attracting the attention of the local leadership. If they actually succeed in getting a hearing for their ideas and proposals, these are often dismissed as unimportant. Ana (18), however, believes that the youth have had a fair hearing within one of the local parties.

In broader terms, a great number of interviewees that were willing to talk about local politics complained that power holders neither bother to inquire about their own ideas, needs and wishes, nor consequently undertake the corresponding actions [e.g. (02) (03) (13) (14) (22) (26) (37) (39) (46)].

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Alberto (30), despite the fact that football dominates the local sports scene, committed himself to the formation of a local volleyball team, and felt that having the opportunity to be listened to about the youngsters’ concerns would constitute the first step in civic and political “participation”. In the final analysis, older people in SMP – as elsewhere – often do not sufficiently trust youth, and this is reinforced by the lack or weakness of political, inter-generational relationships, on the one hand, and on the other, by the possible perception (or misconception) on the part of adults, that youth lack initiative.

This lack of openness concerning youngsters’ civic and political participation in local affairs may cause dissatisfaction and a sense that there is no point in getting involved. This can be inferred from interviewees’ expressions like the following:

Those involved politically try to encourage youngsters to go into politics, for instance to be candidates on the Local Council lists, in order to enlist their help. However, I don’t think their [the youngsters’] opinions are given any value. Their names are there just to fill the list up. It’s [... the adult politicians] that have the final word, they are the important people, at the head of the list; they are the decision-makers, they are the ‘doers’.

Dulce (13), 24 years old

[if we are politically active] they [the adults] just think: “what are these little kids talking about? Don’t they understand anything at all?” They think like that. […] Of course, we do know something. We may only have a little understanding, but we can learn. It’s the adults themselves who are convinced that the youngsters do not understand anything.

Luisa (45), 18 years old

Perhaps the young are held back. You know — “Shut up and grow up; you don’t understand anything”.

Lauro (41), 20 years old

Some [proposals of the youth branch of the party] were accepted but a lot of them were not implemented […] because they [the adult party members] don’t want to follow the ideas of the young people. They want to be the sole decision-makers.

Telmo (39), 19 years old

I was told that they [SMP youngsters] gave up [participating]

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after a theatre project, as well as other things, they had submitted to the Local Council, were all turned down… so, they were forced to give up because it wasn’t worth pursuing it. Youngsters are not allowed to participate.

Elsa (19), 24 years old

Certainly, this dissatisfaction and disillusionment regarding politics are relevant, since many informants readily agreed that a greater participation of the youth in community life would make a difference. The more politically experienced seem to regard participation as a sort of right of citizenship. Telmo (39), who left one of the political parties disillusioned with its top-down decision making process, suggested that youth participation is justified on two main grounds:

- youngsters’ own experience of being young is unique, obviously different from that of adults;

- youngsters may have innovative ideas.

According to one of our key-informants, one priest, Telmo’s disillusionment is not unique. Indeed, he expressed himself in this way:

You hardly see [the youngsters], except... when the electoral campaigns take place. Then, they are sought out, mobilised for this and for that. But there is a great deal of disenchantment among youngsters regarding politics.

So far, we have concluded that, on the one hand, the participation of youth in community and some spheres of political life seem to be relatively high. On the other hand, there are indications about leaders’ ignorance of – or even disdain for – youngsters’ ideas, needs and wishes. Moreover, there are also hints that some sort of exclusion from political decision making processes exists. Briefly, we could infer that “politicians use youth”. This inference is strongly corroborated by the following statement of a young political leader, one of our key-informants:

Indeed, the great majority of the youngsters are very active during the political campaigns, but [a youngster that is in the electoral list] is just placed strategically where he is required to ‘pedal’. He will have the illusion that he may be moving forward – may be elected – but, in fact, he won’t.

The differentiated political behaviour of youth (commitment versus

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reserve) may be partly explained by their perception of the issue, which may not differ significantly from that of the adults. From the data, local political power emerges much more as personal privilege than as public service. Political power is the power holders’ own property rather than a collective and shared instrument. Most interviewees seemed surprised with researchers’ interest regarding the extent to which young people have been involved in decision-making in the local areas, and the usual answer was something like this: “of course, here the mayor rules”. In contemplating even the smallest local initiative, it is the mayor’s views and thoughts, interests and wishes, on the one hand, as well as the issues and interests he is unwilling to support, on the other, that tend to be seen as the key determinant.

To beg favours of the mayor is common. Needless to say that jobs are cases in point. His own capabilities and achievements are often overestimated, although they are frequently under close screening:

This mayor is soft. He does nothing. Nothing.

Paulo (26), 17 years old

This mayor the man to make SMP into a real town.

Luisa (45), 18 years old

In there [SMP] many things function through “cunhas”. People expect this. Moreover, perhaps due the fact that SMP is a small, closed community, I think it has a highly politicised atmosphere. They [the people] resort frequently to, for instance, the Local Council, in the sense that it has, to a certain extent, the obligation of providing them with employment […] And they do ask. Like beggars asking for alms.

Nurse, female, key-informant

In rural Portugal, politics is a domain that is probably more territorially than ideologically rooted. A political candidate is expected to win “at home” and later he must bring development to “his” land or community. This means that the mandate for a politician is to undertake actions that are material, visible and having immediate impact, such as infrastructures (e.g. a bar, a cinema, a medical centre) more than achieve long term less tangible progress. While sharing an ideology may be of little use, familiarity with members of the political class can help. Furthermore, it is commonly accepted that for the mayor of the County Council to be of the same party as the President of one’s Parish Council (freguesia) is the best possible way

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of assuring the village develops.

The extent of the gap between politics and ideology is also reflected to a large degree in the discourses of young people, which are typically empty of any references to common causes and socio-political values. Only one informant, not surprisingly, perhaps, with links to the youth branch of the PCP, elaborated unequivocally on local political themes and local-national disparities. The issues he touched on were as follows:

- the need for alternative investment priorities and policies in the municipality;

- the unequal economic opportunities faced by rural and urban youth respectively;

- the predominance of inter-party struggle over the search for consensus on “regional” development;

- the unequal development between interior and coast, between Lisbon/Porto and Trás-os-Montes, and between SMP and its surrounding villages.

There is also some evidence that the exercise of power is seen as being more secretive than transparent, with neither dialogue nor debate much in evidence. It is more or less expected that issues of supposedly public interest be kept within political boundaries, preferably inside one’s own party offices. It seems also legitimate to say that local politics tends to be built upon social networks. At least some informants openly recognise that both the family and the peers strongly influence one’s links to the life of the political parties. One girl stated explicitly that she joins the party’s marches just to have fun with her friends; other informants spoke of their political involvement as part of family life. Eça (11), the leader of one of the local youth branches of a political party could not have been clearer:

Well, my father is a politician, he is the president of the Junta. Personally I do not like much politics, I believe that it is somewhat dirty… people do a lot of deals under the table and behind people’s backs … that’s it, you see, it was more… [a case of being involved] since I was a child … after, I joined my father in this business, in political campaigns and so on… I started to get into this, I was pressurised into be in charge of the youth branch [of the political party], and that’s all there was to it.

Since local politics meshes with families and with social networks and is

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also perceived as a personally- and territorial-related exercise, it seems acceptable to argue that, quite straightforwardly, local politics works as a driving force for both social “inclusion” and social “exclusion”. Those who have close ties with the mayor, with members of the ruling party, with local leaders, or with those who are integrated in their social networks get “into” specific social spheres; the rest are simply left “out”. Some even become socialised into the prevailing opinion of their political leaders regarding the role and ideas of youth in politics. Yet one may wonder why some youth persist in politics, given the apparent mismatch between the high political costs (involvement and work) and the low returns (little attention to and poor acceptance of young people’s ideas and proposals). Why do they allow “politicians to use youth”? Would it not be reasonable to expect some kind of rebellious reaction?

The data collected may support the idea that, after all, the unbalanced nature of the transaction between politicians and young people is not a long term phenomenon. Youth “play” with politics for the fun it involves, and “drop out” of politics because of its frustrations. On the other hand, they may keep a low political profile by missing the regular party meetings, tolerating the above mismatch mentioned for a while in the hope that it may turn out well. For instance, it may guarantee access to a job. Indeed, three informants revealed that their current jobs were obtained (two became civil servants and one has had several temporary jobs through the Local Council), due to their political membership and activity. The researchers also became aware of their sombre expectations if local political change were to occur: both career promotion and the availability of temporary work could come to an abrupt stop. Briefly, we could also infer that “youth use politicians”.

3.6 PARADOX 6: FOR THE INTERVIEWEES, BOTH SMP’S FUTURE AND THE AVAILABLE POLICIES DO NOT LOOK PROMISING. HOWEVER, YOUTH SEEM WILLING TO STAY

Our analysis of the data on SMP’s youth supplied another paradox, the sixth. In spite of both the youngsters’ pessimistic prognosis of the future of the local area and their negative observations on policies, in general they seem rather willing to stay.

Undoubtedly, to make socio-political prognoses is a difficult exercise for anyone, let alone (perhaps) the youngest among us. SMP’s youngsters are not exception. So, some respondents simply did not proffer comments in this respect, others did so only reluctantly and the remaining merely looked

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at the development achieved until the present, or formulated rather vague wishes concerning the future [e.g. (38) (43) (45)]. Nevertheless, the fieldwork interviews provided us with the following pointers:

concerning the past, the respondents recognise changes, particularly in infrastructure and the built environment, most of which, according to them, have been achieved only gradually and at a too slow pace;

as to the future, out of 16 interviewees who made prognostics, 9 were rather pessimistic [(11) (12) (14) (19) (21) (29) (33) (37) (40)]; the remaining 6 felt that little would change, and only slowly if at all, namely in commerce and building [(04) (07) (27) (28) (30) (31)];

furthermore, Inês (05), who had the most optimistic view, admitted that two specific places within the SMP concelho (Lobrigos and Cumieira), which are scattered from each other and are close respectively to Régua and Vila Real, would become new residential sites for people employed in these urban centres. In brief, the general youngsters’ prognostic is very grim and pesimistic: SMP will stagnate.

These predictions are clearly somewhat conditioned by the current scarcity of local jobs, lack of industrial development, and the expected negative impact of new roads [e.g. (21) (33) (42) referred very explicitly these points], but we may hypothesise that it is also related to the youngsters’ perceptions of the impact of the available policies. So it is worth looking in more detail at this last aspect.

To begin with, a general point should be made. As commonly happens with other people, SMP’s youngsters are usually unable to identify policies and projects from which they have benefited20. For instance, none of them mentioned any social welfare grant during his/her period of compulsory education, but it is very likely that, at least some of them have been covered by this type of support. Similarly, we observed that youngsters who were trainees in official courses had difficulties in mentioning the respective programme or project [e.g. the AGIR and INFORJOVEM programmes]. Beneficiaries, adult and youth alike, tend to recall only the organisations’ designations (some with great difficulty), or their locations, and, perhaps, one or two names of those civil servants with whom they had closer contact and interaction.

Even discounting this serious limitation in getting an accurate picture of the young people as direct policy beneficiaries, the policies themselves appear as sort of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Certainly, this is so at the field level and from the youngster’s perspective. Only a very small number of them had had even a glimpse of what policies constituted, and this was

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usually via an intermediary. Moreover, the more informed interviewees tend to have highly sceptical attitudes towards policies, as the following youngsters’ narrative accounts reveal.

Now there’s the Guaranteed Minimum Income, the government is paying people to stay at home […] At some time in the future [the loan component of] EU farm support will have to be paid back. Then, I’d like to see how the people [who benefited] will find the cash. This will be in 2006…

Paulo (26), 17 years old, student

The impression that I have got about it [policy measures favourable to the creation of self-employment] after collecting information [concerning the setting up of a sportswear shop] is that the whole set of measures is a great masquerade.

Inês (05), 23 years old, employed

I applied for that [policy support for the creation of self-employment], but it is all a pretence, really. The project was approved three, almost four years ago, but we haven’t received the money yet. We got a letter, but there was some document missing, and then there was something else missing afterwards. That’s because of the things that they [the civil servants]… did not explain well enough… We kept going there [Porto] and they said this and that and, after half an hour, it seemed the project was approved. But when we met them again, two hours were needed. Then all they could say was that this was missing, and that was missing.

Lúcia (23), 20 years old, employed

Miguel (33), a 24 year old lad, self-employed, who inherited a small restaurant and has plans of enlarging his business via a two-phase tourism hotel project, spoke more favourably about the public sector offices responsible for such matters in Porto. However, he admitted that he may suspend and reshape the first phase of this project, which took two years to be approved, because the supportive financial scheme announced for the next six years looks much more favourable. These youngsters’ accounts do not speak very highly of both the policies and/or the quality of the public organisations, and are similar to the statements concerning the quality of service provided by the Job Centres (see chapter 4).

Sometimes, neither lack of “good” policies nor specific implementation

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problems exist, but the local context makes the former inapplicable. This is certainly the case of the existing Portuguese housing policies targeted on young people. I.e. “Youth Renting” and “Youth Loans”21, so, it would be worthwhile looking at these briefly.

Housing does not seem to be a major problem with the youth of SMP since the family assumes a supportive role in providing them the living arrangements needed. The fact that there exist policies aimed at aiding young people to obtain a house of their own, either rented or bought, is not reason enough for them to leave their parents’ home before they marry or find employment. It should be noted that, although SMP is a rural area, it suffers somewhat from the price speculation that exists in the housing market in Vila Real. Houses in SMP, although slightly cheaper than in nearby cities, are however not easily affordable to young people who have just begun to work22. Given that the majority of the young people interviewed have a monthly income between €300 and €599, to buy a house of €95,000 is simply an unrealisable dream. Note also that to obtain a bank loan with that salary level is also impossible. In fact, bank loans for housing for young people have two legal arrangements: one that provides state aid in terms of contributing financially to the monthly payments to the bank; and the other has no state aid. With the first arrangement it is only possible to obtain a loan with the above-mentioned income if a house costs no more than €68,000, and yet at this price the loan would imply a monthly payment of more than half of the buyer’s salary. With the second legal arrangement a loan would not be granted at all to any person with the income level under discussion.

If we consider the hypothesis of renting a house, then it is possible to obtain an aid of until 80% of the monthly rent. This hypothesis, notwithstanding its attractiveness, poses some difficulties since in SMP there is no formal renting housing market. That is, houses are not usually put to rent and thus young people generally do not use this kind of living arrangement.

So, we can conclude that, in spite of the apparent theoretical merit of existing housing policies for youth, ultimately they are of little importance in SMP’s case. In fact, only a few interviewees mentioned that they had had some sort of state aid and, even so, there was also some mis-interpretation of the policy content and conditions. Note that the decision to buy or rent a house is very rarely taken individually and, therefore, it is often postponed with respect to short-term plans. Obviously, most young people desire a house of their own, but to think about this in concrete terms only happens later in life, after satisfying several more important conditions, namely finding a permanent job and/or marrying.

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In spite of the prevailing conditions just referred to, a considerable number of youngsters interviewed are predisposed to stay in SMP (Table 3.21). Surprisingly, most of the young people (28 out of 46) stated that they will definitely or probably live in SMP: all the married interviewees, with the exception of one, intend to definitely stay in the area and around half of those who are single think they will probably live there in the future. The respondents who are single are less determined in staying in SMP, considering this decision mainly as probable and dependent on the availability of jobs. Only 4 out of 46 stated their plan of definitely leaving SMP.

Table 3.21 - Plans to stay in SMP, by marital status

Plan to stay in the area

Single Married Total

Definitely yes 4 8 12Probably yes 16 16Probably not 4 4Definitely not 4 4Depending on jobs available

6 6

Other 2 1 3D/K 1 1Total 37 9 46Source: Fieldwork interviews, SMP, 1999-2000

More paradoxically still, is the outcome provided by a cross-tabulation data analysis (Table 3.22). When crossing the interviewees’ monthly income with their plans of living in SMP we observe that, in fact, 90% of the interviewees who receive less than ¤ 300 per month are predisposed to stay in the area.

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Table 3.22 - Cross-tabulation of plans to stay in SMP and monthly incomeMonthly Income

(before tax) Under €300 €300-599 €600-1049 TotalPl

an to

stay

in th

e ar

eaDefinitely yes 5

45%5

21%1

100%11

31%Probably yes 5

45%11

46%16

44%Probably not 1

4%1

3%Definitely not 4

17%4

11%Depending on jobs available

313%

38%

Other 19%

13%

Total11

100%24

100%1

100%36

100%Source: Fieldwork interviews, SMP, 1999-2000

These findings may be partially explained by housing issues. In terms of the factors that have an impact on finding a job, affordable housing appears in second place (23 out of 46), which can explain the option of staying in SMP in spite of the lack of job opportunities (i.e. the foremost factor impacting on finding a job), since, at least in this area the youth have a place to live, normally the parents’ home. If high housing rents elsewhere are associated with low pay, or salary, and costly transport, it clearly makes sense to stay in SMP. The lack of local social services reinforces this option, as the case below clearly shows. That is, securing a (low pay) job and (limited) economic independence from the parents is not always enough reason to leave SMP.

I had applied successfully for the job of administrative assistant and was posted to a school in Guimarães [a city about 85 km from SMP]. But nearly all of the salary went on transport, the rent and all... And it was also a bad moment for me, because it was then that my mother had a stroke (...) and that also made me think a lot... If I was to become independent I’d keep little or no money for myself. And I preferred to stay at home and take care of my mother.

Luzia (20), 25 years old, single

The availability of jobs, affordable housing and the wish to stay in SMP appear as inter-linked factors with regard to employment search and thus also in terms of the decision, or the plans, to stay in the area. It is, however, interesting to note that the wish to stay in the area (viewed as an individual

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factor) was confirmed by 19 interviewees as having no effect on job-search. Only 9 interviewees seem particularly “attached to” SMP, since they see this factor as imposing constraints in finding (and accepting) a job. Even though young people consider a wide range of factors when they have to decide whether or not to leave SMP, it is usually employment (associated, or not, to emigration) that emerges as the main factor taken into account. Guida (27), who is 16 years old and has a precarious, low paid job, is planning to migrate within two years, that is, as soon as she gets “legal autonomy”.

In spite of the multiple factors affecting the decision to leave or stay in SMP, it seems legitimate to say that, in general, for the youngsters interviewed and living there, it is preferable to find employment in the area. Very likely, this is so, among other reasons, because of the inter-dependence between them and their parents. This does not mean however, that they will stay in SMP at any cost: they are willing to make sacrifices in the name of the relations of reciprocal solidarity they have with their parents, but they are also conscious of the implications that any changes in their lives, whether regarding employment or marriage, will have on their future, longer term plans. In brief, ultimately, the question — to stay or to leave? — is an open one.

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Chapter 4

Santa Marta de Penaguião:pathways to employment

4.1 EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN SANTA MARTA DE PENAGUIÃO: RECENT TRENDS & TENDENCIES

While employment in the Douro (NUT III) sub-region where the SMP study area is situated, grew by 9% in the period 1995-1997, unemployment rose by over one-third (see Table 4.23), precisely when it started a decrease trend in Portugal. The gravity of this trend is underlined by the fact that, in the space of just three years, the Douro’s unemployment rate overtook that of the Northern Region as a whole23, and by 1997 had attained a rate of double that figure. Besides, registered unemployment at Job Centres continued to grow in the Douro in recent years. There are two main reasons for this dramatic situation. On the one hand, the local economy has proven incapable of absorbing even the relatively modest number of young people that enter the job market each year24. On the other, there has been an increase in the number of people enumerated as “available for work”, both due to improvements in the statistical coverage, and as a result of those hitherto considered inactive (mainly women categorised as housewives and/or as unpaid family workers) defining (and eventually registering) themselves as unemployed.

Table 4.23 - Employment and Unemployment in the Douro sub-region (NUT III)

Labour force indicators 1995 1996 1997A. Employed population 77,500 76,200 84,200B. Overall activity rate (%) 35.3 34.7 38.6C. Unemployed population(sample survey, self identification)* 4,700 4,900 6,300D. Unemployment rate (%) [C/(A+C)] 5.7 6.0 7.0Source: Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE), Northern Region Employment Surveys, 1995-97.Note: INE defines the unemployed, in its employment surveys, as individuals without jobs, available to work and who state to have been actively seeking it during the preceding 4 weeks. This means that all other people, not looking for a job in this time span, are classified as inactive.*It is important to stress the difference between unemployment rates estimated on the basis of sample surveys and self-definition (on the one hand) and unemployment measured in terms of those registered as Job Centres.

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It is widely known that unemployment affects youth far more than the rest of the economically active population, being young women particularly badly affected. This phenomenon of gender inequality in the 15-24 cohort expresses itself more clearly in the Douro than anywhere else in the country. Due to an insufficient sample size of the Northern Region Employment Survey, we are unable to present unemployment data, disaggregated by age and/or gender for the Douro NUT alone, but we can do so if we combine this sub-region with the neighbour Alto Trás-os-Montes. As can be seen in Figure 5, the unemployment rate of young females in this ‘combined’ region triples that of young males. There is also a large gap between the female unemployment rate of Trás-os-Montes and Douro and of any other region, which is not the case for the male rate, lower than the observed in Grande Porto and Minho-Lima and only slightly above than in the most industrialised NUTS, Ave and Cávado.

Figure 5 - Unemployment rates (as % of active population) in the 15-24 cohort, by gender, in the NUTS III of Northern Portugal (1999)

Source: Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE), Northern Region Employment Survey, 1999.

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However, the most impressive figure that distinguishes young women living in Douro and Trás-os-Montes, both from their young male counterparts and from young women living in the rest of the Northern Region, is the activity (or inactivity) rate. One can see in Figure 6 that the proportion of employed females in Douro and Trás-os-Montes (25%) roughly halves that of males in the same area (47%) and that of females all over the North (48%).

Figure 6 - Occupational profile (as % of total population) of the 15-24 cohort, by gender, in the NUTS III Douro and Alto Trás-os-Montes an d in the NUT II Norte (1999)Source: Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE), Northern Region Employment Survey, 1999.

As we move down the geographical scale from the Northern Region (NUT II) to the interior North of Portugal (Douro and Alto Trás-os-Montes combined), we find activity rates declining, unemployment steadily increasing, and the gap between male and female (un)employment widening.

Although we are unable to project this reality directly onto the locality of SMP, our knowledge of the area, as well as the following data, would suggest that the very same tendency applies as we move from the NUT Douro to the SMP county.

Considering registered unemployment youth at Job Centres, i.e. young people who apply for a job at a government (un)employment institute, and relating those figures with the resident population on the respective cohort,

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we have a raw image of the magnitude of unemployment in SMP, compared to the Douro.

Table 4.24 - Unemployment in relation to resident population, in the 15-24 cohort (1999)

S. Marta de Penaguião DouroLabour force indicators Male Female Male FemaleA. Population (1998 estimate) 851 832 20,677 19,474B. Registered unemployed 37 97 835 1,775C. Unemployment as % of population (B/A) 4.3 11.7 4.0 9.1

Source: Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE), Estimativas da População, 1998; Instituto de Emprego e Formação Profissional (IEFP) 1999 (unemployment data).

As can be seen from Table 4.24, the number of women aged 15-24 registered as unemployed in SMP exceeds 11% of the total cohort, well above the Douro sub-region’s rate of 9%, while the figures for young males are very similar. We can then confirm an increase in unemployment and a widening in the gender gap as we move from Douro to SMP. Nothing can be said about the activity rate in the county, as there is no fresh data on the subject25; but if we assume an activity rate in SMP equal to the value of Douro and Trás-os-Montes, the unemployment rates of SMP's youth, computed as percentage of active population, would be 8.6% for men and 39.4% for women, meaning that in every five young women available to work, two of them couldn't find a job.

4.2 THE OCCUPATIONAL PROFILE OF THE SAMPLE

4.2.1 Introduction

The results of the interviews conducted in SMP bore out one of the hypotheses with which the research had begun, namely that, in rural areas, a pathway to employment does not necessarily involve direct (or even indirect) contact with the labour-market as it is conventionally understood. This does not mean that the market is absent, or that it does not operate, but rather that the particularities of how supply and demand interact, and how market, policy and civil society articulate in a given locality, may be sufficiently distinct and complex to warrant less simplistic assumptions and conclusions on the part of policy-makers with regard to how out-migration can be stemmed by more closely matching local supply and demand conditions.

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4.2.2 Current occupational profile of the interviewees

There are essentially two ways of characterising the employment and occupational profile of the 46 young people interviewed in the county of SMP:

(1) according to a standard classification of occupations (as employed in the questionnaire survey, which is most conducive to broad comparisons between the 7 European study areas analysed in the research project as a whole;

(2) using a more “tailored” classification, derived from the concrete experience of youth in the specific study area (see below).

The table below presents the employment and occupational profile of young people in SMP according to the qualitative data provided by the interview transcripts, an alternative occupational profile was drawn up as follows:

Table 4.25 - Occupational profile of the sample at time of interview

Occupation Nº %Shop/office counter staff 12 26.1Administrative/reception/secretarial staff 5 10.9Job Centre or similar work placements 5 10.9State or other occupational training courses 2 4.3Registered unemployed (+ undeclared work and/or helping out in family enterprise) * 4 8.7Still studying 5 10.9Labourers (building, agricultural) 3 6.5Public sector employees (post office, police) 3 6.5Apprentices/ (un)skilled workers in production/services 5 10.9Self-employed (restaurant owner) 1 2.2(Awaiting) military service 1 2.2TOTAL 46 100.1

Source: Fieldwork interviews, SMP 1999-2000.* These figures do not correspond to those derived from the Questionnaire survey, which were based upon a subjective “self-identification as unemployed” by the subject. Neither is this figure based upon merely an official definition of unemployment, but rather a more objective assessment of the interviewee’s employment situation, based upon the details of the interview transcripts.

Counter staff

By far the largest number of young people interviewed (26%) were working as sales staff behind the counter in retail shops and small service

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companies. A minority of these were working in premises owned and operated by their parents or close relatives. The preponderance of this type of employment – be it in retail or services – clearly reflects the importance that traditional commerce, alongside agriculture, has retained in much of rural Portugal, in the structure of both production and employment. It also points to the severe difficulties encountered by potential entrepreneurs, on the one hand, and policy-makers, on the other, in attracting manufacturing and/or modern service investment to all but the largest of rural population centres.

The interviews also suggested that the degree of stability associated with this type of retail/services employment cannot, however, be exaggerated. The tendency has long been for local entrepreneurs to cluster in what are perceived to be ‘safe’, if not highly profitable, activities – with bars, cafés and restaurants being the preferred location for investment. However, even the smallest towns and the most rural counties are not exempt from the forces that are currently reshaping production, commerce and services world-wide. The continued population drift from the villages to small towns (such as SMP), and thence to administrative centres such as Vila Real, along with the concentration of more modern retail and service outlets in larger urban centres, tends to undermine the viability of traditional small town commerce. However, the pressures to modernise one’s enterprise (despite the subsidies available), or set up a new type of enterprise in situ (as a more attractive investment of capital than low interest bearing accounts), may substantially increase risk: establishments as apparently commonplace as an optician’s shop, a dry cleaning establishment or a second driving school may appear and disappear within the space of a year, adding to the volatility of the labour market, and to the frustrations of youth in the early stages of their employment pathway.

Lower level administrative employment

There were five cases (11%) of young people employed in a combination of lower-level secretarial and administrative duties, including acting as a receptionist. While it might appear that an overlap exists between counter staff (above) and reception work, a clear distinction existed inasmuch as the work of the latter involved both a wider range of activities and imposed greater technical and organisational demands.

Employment in manufacturing, transport and services

A little under 11% of those interviewed worked as unskilled or semi-skilled employees in small enterprises, with the emphasis being on transport and services (drivers, car mechanics, etc), rather than on production as such

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(e.g. bakery work). As indicated above, manufacturing is almost totally absent from in SMP.

Studying and Working

The interviews also revealed certain employment situations and, indeed, contours of the school-to-employment transition that the closed nature of the questionnaire had left hidden. There exists a category of youngsters who are already working, but mainly — it would seem — with a view to financing the completion of their secondary or, in exceptional cases, their higher education. In this sense, they still have one foot in the world of study and the other in the world of work, and their current job situation reflected neither necessarily their future plans, nor the direction and trajectory of their employment pathways. It is common for youngsters who fail by a relatively small margin to complete the compulsory 9th or terminal 12th grade of secondary schooling, to maintain their eligibility for course registration and examination, and to continue to study — either independently, or through evening classes and/or private tuition — in order to achieve the qualifications that may benefit them in securing either employment or, in the case of lower-level qualifications, a place on a training course. More specifically, those registered as unemployed but not currently on training programmes or work placements, may also combine some private study with such undeclared work as may be available.

Work Placements and Occupational Training

At the time of the interviews, a little over 15% of the sample was involved either in work placements (5 cases) or in full-time occupational or vocational training (2 cases). Work placements are allocated by the Job Centre in Vila Real, administered either by the Local Council, the Portuguese Youth Institute (IPJ), or some other public body, and undertaken in a range of public sector establishments (Tourism Office, local schools, day centres for the elderly, etc.) by those previously registered as unemployed.

Agricultural labour

The researchers were initially surprised to encounter only two agricultural workers in the sample. Very likely, this is not representative of the number of young people employed on a more or less full time basis in agriculture. Undoubtedly, most young people in SMP manifest extreme resistance to agricultural work – except as a temporary holiday job, helping out on the small family property, or as employment of last resort. However, there

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were problems of access, logistics and eventually confidence associated with undertaking additional interviews in order to redress perceived or confirmed imbalances in the SMP sample, as had been successfully done with other youth categories. Firstly, agricultural day labour is often supplied through recruiting agents (empreiteiros), who negotiate a contract price with the larger vineyard proprietors and estates (quintas) on the one hand, and a day-rate with the workers, on the other, their profit coming from the difference between two. Also, this type of employment and income is typically undeclared by labourer and empreiteiro alike. Finally, without the co-operation of the empreiteiro, it is difficult to locate young agricultural workers to fill in questionnaire surveys and, above all, to participate in more detailed interviews.

Self-employment

Only one interviewee was currently self-employed as a restaurateur. This youngster had past experience of running his own business, a sports goods shop. Other three youngsters were pondering over short-to-medium terms plans – either independently, or as part of a family strategy – to establish their own enterprises (in tailoring, in sports goods shop, and in car spares and accessories). A not insignificant number of youngsters (6, or 13%) were working full time in family firms, though it was common practice for others, during periods of unemployment, to sporadically and/or temporarily help out in family businesses.

4.3 EXPERIENCES OF EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT

4.3.1 From the first experiences to the current job: the volatility of employment pathways

The work histories derived from interviews allowed a broad comparison to be made between (1) the first employment youngsters in SMP encountered after leaving school; (2) their employment status at the time of the interview; and (3) subsequent changes that occurred in the 4-6 months thereafter. Feedback collected during the subsequent group meetings, and a later round of telephone contacts, made it clear that no fewer than 11 — or almost a quarter — of these youngsters’ employment situations had changed quite dramatically in the 3-4 months since they had been interviewed.

The table below presents a broad comparison along the lines suggested above. Changes in the relative weight of each employment category only hint at the extent and speed of the shifting fortunes of rural youth since,

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from the time of entry into employment until the time interviewees were most recently contacted, they may have not only moved along a given employment pathway, but also shifted once – or more – from one occupational category to another. Nevertheless, the figures presented below do provide some indication of just how volatile some employment pathways may be.

Table 4.26 - Occupational dynamics among SMP youth

Employment/occupation category

First employment

At time of interview Nov-Dec 1999

Updated July 2000

Trend over time***

Nº % Nº % Nº %Shop/office counter staff 8 17.4 12 26.1 10 21.7 Administrative staff 4 8.7 5 10.9 6 13.0 Job Centre work placement 6 13.0 5 10.9 4 8.7 State or other training courses 0 0 2 4.3 1 2.2 Unemployed (+ undeclared work)

3 6.5 4 8.7 3 6.5

Still studying 5 10.9 5 10.9 4 8.7 Labourers (building, agricultural)

5 10.9 3 6.5 4 8.7

Public sector employees 0 0 3 6.5 2 4.4 Apprentice/ (un)skilled workers in production/services

8 17.4 5 10.9 5 10.9

Self-employed 1 2.2 1 2.2 2 2.2 “Helping out” (in family enterprise)

6 13.0 * * * * -

Compulsory military service 0 0 1 2.2 2 4.4 Current situation changed but details unknown/unspecified **

0 0 0 0 4 8.7 -

TOTAL 46 100.0 46 100.1 46 100.0 -Source:Fieldwork interviews, SMP 1999-2000.*For the purposes of this analysis, in the 2nd and 3rd column, corresponding to later stages in the school-to-employment pathway, “helping out” has been subsumed into the “unemployed” category. **Despite the lack of detail available, in at least 3 cases, it was clear that the interviewees had found salaried work in Vila Real, and that the socio-economic space in which the labour market, and/or social networks functioned, had substantially widened. ***Key to approximate trend over time: rising trend; steep rise; declining trend; steep decline trend broadly unchanged.

Overall, while the occupational situation of almost two thirds of the sample remained unchanged in the period January to July 2000, almost one third either were no longer working in the same place, had changed occupations, had lost their job and were unemployed, were jobless and had found work, or had entered a period of training or work experience. In 4 cases (8.7%), it was not possible to confirm whether any alterations had taken place.

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Table 4.27 - Changes in occupational/employment situation since interview

Occupational/employment shift January 2000 – July 2000

Nº %

Situation unchanged 29 63,0Situation altered 13 28,3Situation unknown 4 8,7TOTAL 46 100Source: SMP, 2000, fieldwork interviews and telephone follow-ups

4.3.2 First experiences of employment and unemployment

Full time employment

The questionnaire survey, which provided a subjective perspective on young people’s employment situation, indicated that 7 (15.2%) considered that they had had full time employment at some time since they left school, 26 (56.5%) saw this as their current position, and 6 (13%) felt that they had never had a full time job or occupation. The remaining 7 responses were invalid or not applicable (e.g. referring to those still at school).

Unemployment experience

Eleven youngsters considered themselves as unemployed, regardless of being registered at the Job Centre or not. This figure included some of those on placements, and others who has entered full time training organised by the Job Centre, who also felt that their situation fell under the heading of being “unemployed”. One young woman gaining work experience through a Portuguese Youth Institute (IPJ) placement said quite explicitly “there’s no difference between this and being unemployed”, referring not to the nature, intensity or utility of the work she was performing, but to the low salary she was receiving. This figure does not, therefore, correspond with the results of our analysis of the interview transcripts, which were based upon a more objective assessment of the interviewee’s employment situation, though we did not simply use “registered as unemployed as our definition. Here 11 respondents self-identified themselves unemployed.

Table 4.28 - Unemployment experience since leaving school

late teens early 20s mid 20s all

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respondentsNº % Nº % Nº % Nº %

Employed now, with past unemployment experience

1 8.3 4 33.3 7 58.3 12 26.1

currently unemployed 2 18.1 6 54.6 3 27.3 11 23.9never been unemployed 4 25.0 4 25.0 8 50.0 16 34.8no answer/not applicable 4 57.1 1 14.3 2 28.6 7 15.2TOTAL 11 23.9 15 32.6 20 43.5 46 100.0Source: Questionnaire survey, SMP, 2000.

Initial unemployment, adjustment, and helping out at home

For about three quarters of the youth interviewed, there was a direct transition from school to first employment of some sort, either with no intervening period of unemployment, or this being very short (say, up to a maximum of 3 months). However, at least eleven of the 46 cases (24%) at some time had experienced a prolonged period of continuous unemployment (i.e. a year or more), either directly after leaving school, or after only a short period of initial employment and/or training. There were further cases of youth experiencing 2 or 3 spells of early unemployment punctuated by short periods of work and/or training.

Eight (17.4%) of the youngsters interviewed had experienced of unemployment shortly (though not necessarily immediately) after leaving school, the duration of which went beyond what one would described as an initial period of adjustment (of, say, 3 months). Furthermore, at some time since they left school, 11 (24% of the sample) had experienced what could be called a prolonged period of continuous unemployment (i.e. a year or more). However, at the time of interview, only 4 (8.7%) could be considered to be experiencing long term unemployment at the time of interview.

During such periods of unemployment, if the family has a small business, farm or vineyard, some of those interviewed helped out, and in a number of cases this temporary measure tended to become more permanent. The capacity — albeit limited — of the typical rural family to absorb in this way sons and daughters who have left school, can provide an important “cushion”, while employment options are identified and explored. In some cases, the inputs provided by youth may be sporadic, largely symbolic and unpaid while, in others, they may constitute a real and valuable contribution to the enterprise that may warrant some remuneration over and above the board and lodging the family normally provides. Furthermore, integration into family-based economic activity may constitute a launch-pad in terms of experience, skills and confidence, as well as for the establishment of networks that may facilitate the search for more definitive

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and stable employment.

There were a number of cases of youth “helping out” — either in the family enterprise or in domestic chores — in which the serious economic or other difficulties (such as death, or sudden and/or chronic illness) being experienced by the family had clearly precipitated premature withdrawal from school. Indeed, the death or chronic illness of a parent, or parents’ separation or divorce, figure prominently in explaining poor school performance, the decision to leave school, and the nature and circumstances of first employment. In the SMP sample, 12 youngsters, or over a quarter of those interviewed had left school and started work without completing the statutory 9 grades of schooling.

One of the major concerns recently expressed both by the Portuguese government and the European Commission, is that many rural youth drop out of education before reaching the minimum leaving age and without completing the corresponding minimum of 9th grade schooling.

Between the two extremes described above, there were also cases of parents who, sometimes against the wishes of their son or daughter, had made sacrifices in order for them to stay on at school. Faced with disappointing school performance, parents threatened — with varying degrees of seriousness — to oblige their offspring to start work, unless the investment paid better dividends. While the threat of being sent to work in the vineyards may nowadays be little more than parental hyperbole, its use reflects not only the hardships of agricultural labour, but also the sense of betrayal parents may feel when opportunities to which they had no access, are seemingly “frittered away” by sons and daughters “who have had everything they wanted”.

Seasonal and casual employment

The interviews gave a rather different picture from the questionnaire survey with regard to experience of casual and seasonal employment. While this term is not synonymous with vineyard work in general, and the grape harvest, in particular, this is the type of work that is locally available on a casual basis. There were cases of youngsters getting a month’s work in the Wine Co-operative, rather than in the vineyards, and of helping with administrative tasks in the Caixa de Crédito Agrícola (Agricultural Credit Bank). In addition to the part time work they are offered in Local Council nurseries or pensioners’ day centres under the auspices of a work experience or similar programme, young women also seem to be able to pick up relatively casual work as child-minders or housekeeper/companions for the elderly. The table below gives some

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indication of the casual/seasonal work mentioned by interviewees, some of it restricted to holiday work for school and university students (one quarter of the cases), the rest being casual work of a more conventional type.

Table 4.29 - Seasonal and casual work in SMP: occupations mentioned in interviews

Occupation Nº Occupation NºShop assistants 4 Secretarial/admin work 2Winery 3 Deliveries 1Cleaner 1 Housekeeper/companion 1Hairdresser’s assistant 1 Factory work 1Emigrant agricultural work 1 Door to door sales 1Source: Fieldwork interviews, SMP, 2000.

It is interesting to note that vineyard work was hardly, if at all, mentioned in this regard. If we extend the analysis to seasonal/casual and part-time work, and excluding those still at school, many of whom had considered the question ”not applicable”, well over half of the sample had no experience whatsoever either of either form of employment.

Table 4.30 - Seasonal, casual and part-time work in SMP

seasonal and casual work

part-time work

Nº % Nº %Not currently but in past 12 26.1 9 19.6Currently 0 0.0 5 10.9Never 27 58.7 25 54.4Not applicable/no answer 7 15.2 7 15.2TOTAL 46 100.0 46 100.0Source: Questionnaire survey, SMP, 2000.

Compulsory military service

In the contacts made to update interviewees’ employment situations, two young men had already been called up for military service which, incidentally, is currently being phased out. However, those who still have to “serve their time” will continue to confront a dual reality — namely that military life, on the one hand, can be an unfortunate interruption with negative effects on a young person’s employment prospects, while, on the other hand, it can provide technical skills and general experience that may facilitate later employment, most particularly in the in the armed services itself, or in the police service (Guarda Nacional Republicana, Polícia de Segurança Pública, Guarda Prisional), as well as in other branches of the security services, private security firms and the Fire Service.

It is worthwhile mentioning that many interviewees — and not only young males — spoke of their ambition to join one or other branches of the police.

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Rural youth face extremely limited employment opportunities in their home areas and particularly those with modest educational qualifications, and still see a career in the police force, as they did before the 1974 Revolution, as offering a way out of the drudgery of agricultural or construction work, with the added bonuses of job security and social status.

Time spent in full time employment since leaving school

Based on the questionnaire and interview data, it was possible to estimate the amount of time spent in full-time employment (excluding paid training programmes and the like) as a proportion of the time that had elapsed since leaving school (or attaining legal school-leaving age).

Table 4.31 - Time spent in full time employment since leaving school

Time spent in full-time employment since leaving school (%)

Nº %

0 – 25 7 2126 – 50 11 3251 – 75 5 1576 – 100 11 32TOTAL 34 100.0

Source: Fieldwork interviews, SMP 1999-2000.

These very approximate calculations nevertheless suggest that just under half of the respondents spent more than 50% of their time in full-time employment in the first few years after leaving school. Had it been possible to build a more precise picture of the extent and duration of part-time, seasonal and unregistered employment, doubtless this figure would have increased markedly. These results underline the unstable and fragmented nature of the employment many youth experience in the course of their school-to work transition.

Length of first employment and number of jobs held.

It was difficult to be very precise concerning the duration of the first employment considered by the interviewee to be full time. However, our best guess, based on estimates of the average length of (a) all discrete periods of employment, (b) first employment, and (c) current employment to date26, would suggest figures of around 2 years, 1½ years, and 3 years respectively. On average, respondents had approximately 2 discrete full time employment experiences from the time they left school to the date of the interview.

These results would seem to contradict other evidence suggesting a high degree of volatility and turnover in young people’s employment situations.

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However, these figures disguise a relatively high degree of variation around the mean and, in more qualitative terms, point to the existence of an “employment trap”, or “low level equilibrium”. Many of the longer-term jobs in question, while stable, consist of “dead-end” work, with little or no prospect of promotion or improvements in pay.

4.4 EMPLOYMENT PATHWAYS AND THE SCHOOL-TO-WORK TRANSITION

4.4.1 Towards a typology of employment pathways

The interviews conducted in SMP provided an enormous volume of evidence regarding the experience of young people as they entered the world of work for the first time. Detailed reading of the interview transcripts, with each ‘pass’ focusing on a different aspect or dimension of the young person’s experience27, permitted a first attempt to be made to identify distinctive school-to-employment pathways, and the relative strength of different variables in influencing their direction and dynamic. The typology of employment pathways presented below was suggested by this intensive reading and re-reading of the interview transcripts.

Inevitably, there remains some doubt as to whether the employment that youth had at the time of interview can be regarded as stable and/or sustainable, and, indeed, if it can be assumed that the transition from school to stable (if not satisfactory, let alone high quality) employment, in fact, has been completed. Indeed, in the case of those who had only recently found employment after training, or after intermittent employment, training and/or unemployment, the stability of their current situation is difficult to assess.

4.4.2 (A) First steps #1 – Still studying

These youngsters have yet to embark on their pathway towards work and are still studying full-time at school. Those still in formal schooling may also have some experience of paid or unpaid employment, (for example, weekends, in the holidays and/or in their family’s business) and/or work-experience placements, and thus may have acquired some skills via formal or informal training. However, the nature, direction and destination of the pathway still to be determined. Thus, in addition to this minimal accumulated experience, a number of other personal, family and/or structural factors may have already intervened to influence the direction, contours and trajectory of their future school-to-employment pathway.

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4.4.3 (B) First steps #2 – Working and studying

Most of these youngsters have already dropped out of school, but there exists strong evidence that their focus is on finishing either the compulsory 9th grade, or the pre-university 12th grade, in order to access better employment opportunities in the short to medium term. Those who have gained entry to higher education may continue to work with or without the non-monetary benefits that official worker-student status can confer, namely the requirement that companies provide such employees with more flexible working hours. Registered unemployment (with or without undeclared work/income) and/or part-time work are also seen as a means to achieving this immediate educational end.

4.4.4 (C) First steps #3 or Unstable Pathway #1 – Indeterminate outcome

In these cases, the time elapsed since reaching school-leaving age and/or leaving school and actively seeking employment, or emerging from a period of unemployment, is insufficient, and work and/or training other experience too brief, to draw conclusions concerning the likely pathway and outcome.

4.4.5 (D) Unstable pathway #2 – Complex, unpredictable outcome

Here, the transition from school to work is still incomplete. The time elapsed since leaving school tends to be relatively short, as do any periods of unemployment. Regardless of whether the subject was employment or registered as unemployed at the time of the interview, the school-to-work pathway to date is characterised by a complex pattern of distinct, short-lived, sometimes superimposed phases, including intermittent and interrupted work experiences, training, multiple job-holding, short periods of unemployment, part-time work combined with part-time training, etc. These patterns may be even more complex, if youth engage in periods of short-term emigrant labour (particularly at harvest time). This tendency, which exacerbates the difficulties of recruiting labour for the grape harvest in SMP, was pointed out by a number of our key informants.

4.4.6 (E) Stable pathway #3 – (Un)Interrupted exclusion

This group’s pathway to current long term unemployment – i.e. a situation characterised by a relatively stable exclusion – may have been direct and uninterrupted (i.e. without ever having found employment), or indirect and interrupted (i.e. having been previously employed but subsequently lost

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their job). This is equivalent to long term unemployment. This category may also include those experiencing a particular form of “stable exclusion”, i.e. those registered as unemployed, yet in “full-time” undeclared work.

4.4.7 (F) Stable pathway #2 – Interrupted (possibly precarious) inclusionThis category’s current situation and pathway to date would suggest that a trajectory towards stable employment has now been established. However, the first experience of employment may have been preceded by a (sometimes significant) period of unemployment, possibly punctuated by some form of programme-based training, or work placement, before lasting employment is found.

It should be stressed, that stability of employment is (i) not necessarily synonymous with quality employment; and (ii) does not necessarily preclude a degree of contractual and/or institutional precariousness, as in the case of workers employed on a succession of short and/or part-time contracts, often with no or low social benefits. Thus their social exclusion often outweighs the extent of the economic inclusion they “enjoy”.

4.4.8 (G) Stable pathway #1 – Direct, uninterrupted inclusion

A transition to apparently stable employment (with or without participation in a training or work experience placement) has been concluded with few if any interruptions i.e. only short periods of “frictional” unemployment, illness, etc., not exceeding three months. Evidence of employment of a precarious nature is minimal or absent.

Using the above typology, the table below shows the relative weight of each of the fairly distinct pathway categories identified during the course of analysing the interview transcripts. It should be emphasised that this typology, like all others, in fact, constitutes a continuum. The nature of the third category — in which it is “too soon to tell” what the precise nature of the employment pathway will be, underlines this point. Given this caveat, and the size of the sample, the percentages attributed to each type of employment pathway are merely suggestive of current trend among youth in SMP.

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Table 4.32 - Typology of employment pathways

PATHWAY TYPE Interviewees Nº %A-FIRST STEPS 1 studying full time 26, 36, 45, 38 4 8.6B-FIRST STEPS 2 working and completing

studies 5, 6, 9, 15, 25, 35

6 13.0C-FIRST STEPS 3 UNSTABLE 1

indeterminate 7, 12, 29, 30, 34, 37, 39, 40, 41 9 19.6

D-UNSTABLE 2 complex unpredictable pathway

17, 22, 463 6.5

E-STABLE 3 (un)interrupted exclusion 18, 20, 43 3 6.5F-STABLE 2 interrupted (yet

precarious?) inclusion 8, 10, 11, 21, 32

5 10.9G-STABLE 1 direct/uninterrupted

inclusion 1, 2, 3, 4, 13, 14, 16, 19, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 33, 42, 44 16 34.9

TOTAL 46 100.0Source: Fieldwork interviews, SMP 1999-2000.

If we exclude those in full time education (A), we find that 38% of the young people interviewed could be regarded as having completed a relatively satisfactory transition to stable employment (G). If we also include those whose pathway to employment stability has been interrupted and may still be characterised by a marked degree of precariousness (F), the proportion of youth with a low to moderate degree of economic exclusion – in the limited employment-related sense of the term – increases to exactly 50% of the of the sample.

As to the rest, over one in five (21.4%) remain in a highly indeterminate situation, with as much evidence arguing for a satisfactory as for an unsatisfactory outcome (C). Indeed, by bracketing along with this category both those working and still studying (B), and those with somewhat longer but more complex employment patterns (D), many of whom have also only recently left school, we find that in 18 cases (or almost 43% of the sample), it really is too soon to determine the future direction their pathways will take, though, in many cases, the degree of economic exclusion currently experienced by this category should be regarded as moderate to high.

Finally, there were 3 cases of youngsters whose employment histories suggest that they should be categorised as in long term unemployment, constituting 7% of the total (again excluding those still in full time education). In these cases, the extent of economic exclusion is undoubtedly high.

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4.5 EMPLOYMENT PATHWAYS: THE REALITIES BEHIND THE TYPOLOGY

4.5.1 Introduction

The set of diagrams below schematise all 7 types of employment pathway defined above and, while they are stylised and hypothetical, they are nevertheless representative of the experiences of many of the youth interviewed in SMP.

Figure 7 – Typical pathways from school to work

4.5.2 Pathways and turning points.

Just as there is a high degree of variation and specificity in the pathways followed by rural youth in acquiring their first employment or, indeed, failing to find any stable or quality livelihood, the crucial turning points in these pathways will also have quite distinct compositions and complexions. These turning points nevertheless provide us with insights into how key variables in rural economy and society may interact.

In some cases, one turning point will be decisive; in other cases, a series of such points, some positive, others negative may come successively into play — with some, perhaps, even dampening the effect of others; in still other cases, a vicious downward spiral, or a virtuous upward trajectory may result from a series of key moments in the school-to-work transition.

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Possibly the best way to conceptually organise these variables, in order to make sense of the first employment experiences of almost fifty young people in SMP, is to think not only in terms of a typology of pathways, but also a typology of turning points — both positive and negative (i.e. leading to greater chances of inclusions, or exclusion, respectively). However, such an exercise goes beyond the scope of the present report. Nevertheless, with a view to identifying more clearly possible policy responses to the specificities of rural employment problems in Portugal, it would be helpful to look at some examples of such turning points that, while they are hypothetical, broadly reflect the situations encountered in the interviews and in the focus group meetings with youth from SMP.

The diagram below presents a detailed summary of the forces shaping the employment path of a hypothetical, but entirely representative, case. The aim is to illustrate not only the range, but also the interplay of variables that appear to determine employment outcomes among SMP youth. For the sake of diagrammatic simplicity, it is assumed that the impact of factors influencing the direction and dynamic of the employment pathway is felt at the end of a distinct stage when, in reality, their impact may be felt throughout that stage and even beyond.

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TURNING POINTS IN SCHOOL TO EMPLOYMENT PATHWAYSAn illustrative example of the forces and factors influencing transition

peer pressure father’s uncle’s summer vacation volunteer with localand youth role death friend on spent improving Chamber of Commerce model Town Council French with father’s at national Trade Fair

emigrant relatives

SCHOOL

leaves without completing final year

UNEMPLOYMENT9 months’ on

unemployment register without successful job or

training placement

TRAINING6 month EU

funded traineeship in

Tourism Office

EMPLOYMENT (1)replacement for receptionist on maternity leave at country hotel

participating in rural tourism project

EMPLOYMENT (2) administrative job with tourism wing of local

development association

formal job application poor career inappropriate mother’s links with submitted competitively advice training options local development (LEADER) yet subject to influence

refused association

KEY: factor wi th l imited influence SCHOOL phases of school- to-employment pa thway

factor wi th modera te influence turning points in school- to-employment pa thway

factor wi th s ignif icant influence

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Finally, we provide a set of diagrams summarising data from 5 of the interviews undertaken, representative of each of the fairly distinct employment pathways (B – F) to be found between the two poles of the continuum presented above, namely (A) youth still at school, and (G) those who have made a direct transition from school to stable employment. No diagrams are provided for Types A and G, due to the fact that their interviews provide far less insight into the way in which the school-to-work transition or particular types of employment pathway function.

A. First steps (still in full-time education)

B. First steps (working & completing studies)

C. First steps / Unstable pathway (indeterminate outcome)

D. Unstable (complex, unpredictable) pathway

E. Stable pathway (interrupted exclusion – long term unemployment)

F. Stable pathway (interrupted inclusion)

G. Stable pathway (direct, uninterrupted inclusion)

The diagrams also attempt to specify in detail (1) which factors determine particular employment outcomes, and (2) which of those factors have the greater influence over the direction and dynamic of the school-to-work transition. Each diagram is accompanied by a brief summary of the interviewee’s employment history to date, presented in narrative form (pathway summary), followed by a diagnosis of the pathway in question, based on the key forces that appear to have influenced their employment pathways (pathway diagnosis). The pathway diagnosis focuses on the key forces that individually or in combination, influence successive phases of the employment pathway, and its major turning points (highlighted in grey), namely

1) Initiative, i.e. the attitude and motivation of the interviewee, as determined both by personal psychology, and by various forms of both proximate and general socialisation;

2) Policy, typically mediated through the national and local state, and/or local public sector institutions and/or private organisations to which training or other responsibilities have been transferred; here a further distinction is made between (a) school, (b) employment-related services such as the Job Centre and (c) various types of training;

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3) Social networks – whether based on parents, neighbours and friends of the family, friends of the interviewee him/herself, political parties and other political structures and organisations (in particular, the Local Council), professional and other types of associations; these may be based on solidarity, or may be of a more clientelist nature; they may function fairly autonomously with substantially symmetrical relations between participants, or they can be characterised by relations of markedly asymmetrical interdependence, mediating between those wielding economic and/or political power, and those seeking personal advancement; and

4) The market, which, in a sense, acts as a proxy both for some of the key structural constraints and for the employment opportunities that the young school leaver confronts.

In summary, then, as can be seen from the diagrams that follow, rural youth confront a number of possible turning points, and their employment paths may be moulded by a succession of such positive and negative influences. As suggested above, most are the result of the structure and functioning of the market, business and related organisations, the public institutional apparatus, the policy framework, and social networks and make up the overall “external” environment youth confront. Its various components overlap and interact, and function at local, regional, national and international levels. Clearly, there is also a more overtly subjective dimension — what we might call the “internal environment” of school-to-employment pathways, that influences these transitions, resulting from the interaction between, on the one hand, the complex of external factors sketched above and, on the other, individual (and group) preferences, motivations and ambitions.

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B. FIRST STEPS (WORKING & COMPLETING STUDIES)Rosa (09), female, aged 20, on a placement scheme, working as a school administrative assistant.

SCHOOL

left before completing 12th

grade

studying alone to complete 12th grade by re-sitting exams

WORK PLACEMENTvia Job Centre in office of local school 2 contract renewals

EMPLOYMENTfixed term contractTRAINING

evening classes taken in: accounts, administrative skills, commercial management, information technology, small business start-up

PATHWAY SUMMARY. Rosa is determined and proactive. She had always wanted to study Greek and Latin at University but, in her final year at school, she had her very first experience of failure. Much against the wishes of her parents, she decided not to repeat the year, but to look for work and study on her own. She looked into going back to school briefly, with a view to taking alternative subjects to complete her 12th grade, but realised this route would divert her from her ambition. The Job Centre offered her a 6-month work placement through the Local Council, attached to a school as an administrative assistant. Whenever she found a training course that she thought would broaden her knowledge and skills and that fitted in with her timetable, even if it didn’t contribute directly to her ambitions, she’d register for it, and now regularly attends classes 3 nights a week. Rosa says that you can never know too much, and even if she’s had enough of school, this type of studying is good therapy. She also joined the youth wing of the party currently in office in SMP, not only because she feels there are still many improvements to be made in the locality, but also because she recognised that membership might provide her with useful contacts for employment. Rosa’s contract has been renewed twice, once from budget of the Unemployment Fund, and then again via the Occupational Programme. Four months after the interview, she was offered a fixed term contract.

PATHWAY DIAGNOSIS. It was Rosa own INITIATIVE to leave school, judging that it had failed her (either by not detecting and/or not supporting her academic ambitions). Her FAMILY disapproved, obliging her initially to stand on her own two feet, while providing fallback support. The JOB CENTRE finds it particularly difficult to provide jobs for youth with above-average qualifications. The placement component of POLICY has nevertheless served Rosa well several times, though vocational TRAINING was largely irrelevant to her ultimate goal. The very attitude and INITIATIVE which may not have served Rosa best interests initially, were nevertheless determinant in the subsequent construction of her own pathway: (1) she built her own SOCIAL NETWORKS via party membership, school and training, and these may have been the decisive factor in the continuation of her contracts; (2) she saw her own TRAINING initiatives mainly as a means of remaining motivated while working towards her academic ambitions. Training has added to her employability in the MARKET, but given the severe constraints on local opportunities and demand, to date the market has pot played a prominent role in Rosa’s employment pathway.

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C. FIRST STEPS / UNSTABLE PATHWAY (INDETERMINATE OUTCOME)Graça (37), female, aged 21, seamstress in Vila Real workshop and self-employed tailoress at home.

SCHOOLcompleted compulsory

9th grade in SMP,and 12th grade in Régua

due to lack of job opportunities and training

options

NON-FORMAL APPRENTICESHIP

elects to work 8 months in SMP

(unpaid) in which she added little to her

existing knowledge

TRAININGGoes to Porto for 3

months; parents pay for private professional dressmaking

course

EMPLOYMENTseamstress in tailor’s workshopSELF-EMPLOYMENT

tailoress

TRAININGcorrespondence course in clothes design

PATHWAY SUMMARY. Graça’s childhood dream was to have her own clothes shop and eventually become a fashion designer. Her mother advised her to stay on at school and, anyway, there weren’t any training courses locally in her chosen profession. She resisted attempts by staff at the JOB CENTRE to enrol her on the courses they were under pressure to fill, which had nothing to do with tailoring. So she worked for 8 months as the unpaid apprentice of a tailoress in SMP, though she learned very little she didn’t know already. Then, despite their very modest income, her parents paid the fees, board and lodging for a dressmaking course in Porto, the first time she had ever left home. On her return they helped her buy a sewing machine and she is trying to build up a clientele, with a view to eventually opening a shop. With the help of friends, she started looking for work and, in the end, had to turn down several offers when the right opportunity came up in Vila Real to combine learning and earning, albeit at a low wage. The transport problem was solved by neighbours who commuted there daily. She doesn’t earn much, but it’s enough to start thinking about her dream again. She has enrolled on a correspondence course in clothes design and also works from home whenever people order clothes or ask for alterations to be made.

PATHWAY DIAGNOSIS. Neither Graça’s abilities nor her ambition were detected at SCHOOL, and the TRAINING services failed to provide her with a course relevant to her needs. The local labour MARKET had little to offer in the way of employment opportunities, and yet it was the PRIVATE SECTOR through which she was able, finally, to train, though this meant moving temporarily to Porto. The FAMILY, despite its poor earnings base, has played a fundamental role in funding her schooling, training and her equipment. The network of support provided by the family’s NEIGHBOURS and Graça’s FRIENDS were also crucial in helping to find work, and in lowering transport costs. Throughout it was probably Graça’s own INITIATIVE and perseverance (looking for information, training opportunities) and vision (the fact that she seemed to have “seen the film before it began”) that contributed most to her current employment situation. However, the “film” isn’t over yet, and Graça’s employment pathway is far from being stable.

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UNSTABLE (COMPLEX, UNPREDICTABLE) PATHWAY Filipe (46), aged 22, male, aspiring footballer with emigrant parents.

SCHOOL10th grade (France)

UNEMPLOYMENT

UNEMPLOYMENT

brief period on return to France

EMPLOYMENTbuilding contractors

(France)

TRAINING PROGRAmME

(France)9 months

waiters and bar staff

EMPLOYMENT

constructionin France

labour agencies

UNEMPLOYMENT

(Portugal)with some

undeclared work

TRAINING PROGRAMME

(Portugal)12 months,

Parks/Gardens Management

NONFORMALAPPRENTICE

SHIPfootball trials

(Portugal)FOOTBALL

wages + win bonus

FOOTBALLwages + win

bonus

FOOTBALLwages + win bonus

PATHWAY SUMMARY. Filipe, the son of Portuguese emigrants, was brought up in France. He enjoyed school, but left at the end of 10th grade to try his luck in professional football. He had played in the local league, but judged that his chances were better in Portugal. He stayed for 6 months with an aunt in Porto, unemployed, while applying for trials with top level Portuguese clubs. The only trial he had was with a minor team, but he was not offered a contract. Crestfallen, he returned to France and worked for 2 years in construction, before opting for a 9 month government training scheme for waiters and bar staff. Once trained, he concluded that he would only find the work he wanted in Paris, which meant incurring living costs beyond his expected salary. He returned to construction work for 3 months, but this time working through agencies rather than for building contractors. Filipe decided to return to Portugal, to see if there were better training and employment opportunities there. He says he hasn’t really grasped how politics work locally, and this may be a disadvantage for him. He started playing football in SMP for a small wage and, after 6 months, the Job Centre suggested he enrol on a year-long course in Parks & Gardens Management – not what he had in mind, but essentially the first career-oriented training opportunity that he was offered. He’s not sure if it will lead to anything, or whether he’s the type to set up a small business, but he’s not discounting anything at present.

PATHWAY DIAGNOSIS. Filipe confronts the MARKET (not to mention the importance of NETWORKS largely unknown to him) when he puts his foot on the first rung of the professional football ladder. This was his dream, and he pursued it using his own INITIATIVE and FAMILY connections, not to mention the LUCK that’s always necessary. However, his own PERSONALITY tends to be somewhat introverted – even more so in Portugal, where he’s a rural Franco-Portuguese, than “back home, where he’s an urban Luso-Frenchman. Back in France, his FRIENDS provide him with contacts in the building sector when he’s forced to return, and the MARKET does the rest, though Filipe’s SCHOOL qualifications may have fitted him for other opportunities. With regard to football, Filipe is still highly motivated and driven, but outside of football, he’s is very pragmatic: (1) he accepted a training opportunity provided by the JOB CENTRE in Tours that diverged both from his sporting ambition and his work experience, and which seems, on reflection, not to have improved his local employability; (2) the JOB CENTRE in SMP at least offered him an option that is laterally connected to his construction experience, and which may lead to local (self) employment opportunities. However, his absence from the key political NETWORKS of influence in SMP, and what he regards as a crucial lack of public information on POLICY and on TRAINING (particularly in mastering Portuguese language), may further hold up his progress.

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E. STABLE PATHWAY (INTERRUPTED EXCLUSION – LONG TERM UNEMPLOYED)Luzia (20), female, aged 25, long term unemployed; just lost first ‘real’ job.

SCHOOL

completed compulsory schooling (9th grade in

SMP; 12th grade in Régua)

UNEMPLOYMENT2 years WORK

PLACEMENTin kindergarten via Job Centre

UNEMPLOYMENT1 year EMPLOYMENT

counter staffopticians

UNEMPLOYMENT

TRAINING accounts

TRAININGcomputers evening

classes 3 nights/week

PATHWAY SUMMARY. Luzia always wanted to join the police force and, though she fulfilled all the academic and psychological criteria, she twice failed the physical tests and is now “too old” to re-apply. She stayed on at school because there were no job opportunities locally that were of interest to her. Her sister was luckier, in a sense, but had to give up a university place when a good job offer came along. Luzia comes from a family of eight children, which has faced economic difficulties ever since, after 32 years’ service, her father lost the land he sharecropped, and his ‘tied’ house, when the property changed hands. Her mother is chronically ill, and receives an invalidity pension. Even before Luzia left school, she had taken the tests to become an educational auxiliary and, during her first 2 years of unemployment, took a short training course in accounts and applied for entry into the Civil Service, to work in Social Security. The only real ‘success’ she achieved was to be offered employment at a school in Guimarães, 75 kilometres from SMP. Reluctantly, she turned it down, because the travel and accommodation costs would have consumed most of her salary, and because her mother suffered a second stroke and needed continuous care. Eventually, the Job Centre found her a work placement in a children’s nursery in SMP, where she stayed for two 6-month contracts. After this, she was unemployed again, and it was only after a year that she found a job behind the counter in an optician’s shop. The shop closed after only a year, and Luzia became unemployed again.

PATHWAY DIAGNOSIS. Luzia is caught between her strong sense of responsibility towards her parents, and a yearning for independence, as expressed in her perseverance and personal INITIATIVE. However, SCHOOL failed to detect and/or help realise her ambition, and seems to have endured an initial period of long term unemployment without effective support from public INSTITUTIONS, in particular the JOB CENTRE. Seemingly, the FAMILY has been unable to deploy social NETWORKS to any great extent or effect, perhaps as a result of the recent abrupt reversal in its fortunes. POLICY often fails not just directly due to poor conception by policy makers and deficient execution by employment services, but also indirectly and in the long term. Rural families have child- and health-care needs unmet by either state- or privately provided care services; thus social POLICY fails the rural elderly and, in combination with low wage levels, undermines the ability of the young to take up such job opportunities that the MARKET may provide. The way in which regional labour MARKET and human resources POLICY in education (teaching, administrative and auxiliary staff) function, forces many to bear excessive costs of travel and accommodation i.e. a long term career investment that school leavers and unemployed cannot yet afford. Another way in which the MARKET impinges negatively on successful school-work transitions is due to the fact that, even though there exist numerous employment opportunities for counter staff in SMP town, the viability of small town retailing and services is extremely fragile and subject to high risk.

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F. STABLE PATHWAY (INTERRUPTED INCLUSION)Gonçalo (10), aged 24, male, building worker and migrant farm hand.

SCHOOLonly completed 3 of the

6 years of compulsory schooling

AGRICULTURAL LABOURCasual (SMP)

EMPLOYMENTConstruction (SMP)

SEASONAL MIGRANT LABOURagriculture (France, Spain)

EVENING CLASSES unsuccessful attempt to

complete 4th grade

PATHWAY SUMMARY. Gonçalo comes from what is conventionally termed a dysfunctional family. His mother and alcoholic father separated, and he was obliged to drop out of school with only 3 years completed. His elder sister was rarely at home. His father drank heavily, and had never bothered much about Gonçalo’s schooling, so it fell to him to look after his younger brothers and sister, and to bring meals to his father, who worked on the Council road-mending gangs. His father remarried and Gonçalo didn’t get on with his stepmother, so at 17, he went to live with his uncle. Until then, Gonçalo had been working casually as a farm labourer, mostly in SMP, but also in Spain and France. His uncle said he could earn more in construction work, and that a contractor in the village would take him on, and would give him time off in slack periods to do harvest work abroad. Gonçalo is now married, with a young son, and his wife works as a farm labourer. Though he’s functionally illiterate, he’s managed to arrange all the paper work to get a mortgage to buy the old stone cottage he dreamed of living in as a boy. The other dream he had was to train to be a chef, but without completing his compulsory education, he wouldn’t be accepted onto a training course.

PATHWAY DIAGNOSIS. Gonçalo’s experience of the FAMILY was complex. His “primary” FAMILY gave him no support, obliged him to work at home, and ruined any chances he had of getting basic education. But his “secondary” family provided the basis for positive change, both directly and through his uncle’s sound advice, and his NETWORK of contacts in the village. His own young family is a source of pride and motivation, and he intends to contribute to community life through the folklore group. His educational shortcomings, which ADULT EDUCATION programmes were unable to correct, have administratively excluded him from anything other than on-the-job TRAINING. No one seems to have detected or tested his capacities for TRAINING in the restaurant trade. His lack of schooling and the nature of the local labour MARKET limited his options to agriculture, in the first instance, but he was quick to seize the opportunity to earn better wages in harvest work abroad. His transfer to and training in construction work was the result of a PERSONAL NETWORK rather than the operation of the MARKET or the efforts of the JOB CENTRE. Indeed, the friendly and trusting RELATIONSHIP Gonçalo has established with the building contractor allows him continue to do season farm work abroad when construction work is scarce. Failed first by his PARENTS, then by the STATE, Gonçalo’s ability to overcome a series of disadvantages, is mainly due to positive FAMILY re-direction of his employment pathway, to his own INITIATIVE and willingness to work, either at home or abroad, in the two segments of the labour MARKET that provide regular work to unskilled labour. Paradoxically, perhaps, Gonçalo was excluded least of all by the local housing and national finance MARKETS and was able to both meet his housing needs and realise a boyhood dream.

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4.5.3 Factors facilitating and inhibiting the transition to stable employment.

We are now in a position to move back from illustrative individual case-studies to the sample as a whole, with a view to examining in broader terms the ways in which specific factors may facilitate or inhibit more stable and satisfactory school-to-employment transitions.

Schooling and employment success

While the majority of youth in SMP encounter difficulties in completing the transition from school to work, it is primarily those with better qualifications (measured by the number years of school completed) that have the most protracted problems. Of those who had failed to complete 9th grade (currently, the compulsory minimum level of schooling), 58% made a direct and uninterrupted transition to employment, while 71% of those who had entered the final phase of secondary school (10th – 12th grade) had experienced unemployment after leaving school.

Family trauma and employment prospects.

A family trauma, such as divorce, the death or long-term serious illness of a parent, or an abrupt deterioration in economic circumstances, can be instrumental in blocking off an educational, training or employment option that otherwise could have led to a better pathway. At the very least, in addition to one family break-up, there were 4 other cases in which a parent died at a relatively early age, two further cases of family impoverishment – either chronic or sudden, and a number of other cases of a chronically ill parent requiring constant care. Thus over 15% of the respondents had had to confront family traumas while attempting to identify and follow a satisfactory school-to-employment pathway.

There are other changes in family circumstances that may have a crucial impact on the direction, trajectory, duration and, ultimately the success or otherwise of a given individual’s transition from school to work. For example, in the Douro Valley, as elsewhere in rural Portugal, the (temporary) emigration of parents or other close relatives can have a substantial effect on the opportunity structure facing those who remain. Many of the youth interviewed and, indeed, most of the families in the study area, have first hand experience of long term separation from one or both parents during periods of emigrant employment; this often means growing up in an uncle’s or grandmother’s home. Others have less direct experience, via the emigration of uncles and aunts, cousins, etc., which

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nonetheless may mean a change in the economic and/or housing conditions faced by their own family, with their parents undertaking the long term care of nephews and nieces).

Concrete cases range from a temporary setback or reversal of a son or daughter’s plans caused by a parent’s illness, to real and lasting economic deprivation of a whole family beset by a combination of mutually reinforcing problems. The experience of one interviewee, who incidentally had courageously overcome the disadvantages he had confronted as a child in what could only be described as a classic dysfunctional family, eloquently illustrates the effect family trauma(s) can have on the school-to-work transition.

“My dad was a labourer on the Council’s road-mending gangs and, well, there wasn’t much chance of me staying on at school, because I was always having to take him his lunch wherever he was working. He drank a lot, too, so when my mother ran off, someone had to look after the house and the other 4 children. Anyway, I never got to be one of those people who reads and writes well. I didn’t get on with his new wife either, so when I was 17, I went to live with my uncle. He got me started in the construction business — the builder I work for is from the same village. When things are quiet, I go abroad for the tomato or strawberry harvest. Some of my friends have ended up in prison, you know, but I’ve managed to avoid that. I’ve got my own wife and kids now”.

Gonçalo (10), 24 years old

Advice and guidance from teachers and career advisors

A committed teacher with good formal or informal skills in (1) detecting students’ capacities, talents, ambitions and dreams, and/or (2) with good formal or informal career advisory skills, may be a crucial factor in turning around what appeared to be an unpromising or even disruptive student28. It is equally the case that a school without such staff skills, or without the time to deploy them, may constitute a key element in the frustration of a young person’s ambitions, or in the failure to realise his or her potentialities. A similar argument can be mounted to indicate the positive or negative influence of the Employment Services, in general, and/or specific policy measures, in particular. As indicated above, youth evaluations of the career guidance and support provided by school are not positive, and attitudes towards the IEFP are markedly negative.

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While students recognise that, due to pressure of work, teachers may have relatively little time for such activities, it is not untypical to attribute the problem to a certain routinism and lack of foresight on the part of schools. Teachers are right to point to the excessive demands made on them as a result of the continuous changes to both curricula and the school management model that recent educational reforms and modernisation have imposed. Nevertheless, the result is that, despite the best of intentions and often legitimate excuses, schools leave students technically, motivationally and attitudinally ill-prepared for the difficult transition to the world of work.

Information, guidance and training provided through the Job Centre

The performance of the Job Centres, managed by the IEFP (Institute for Employment and Professional Training) and located in only some of the county seats, is in part inhibited by the strict limitations that both the law and deeply-entrenched bureaucratic practices impose on the scope of their operations. The remit of the Centres is to act exclusively as a mediator between the private sector and those seeking new or first employment. This limitation is all the greater since it is the Local Council and the public sector (the latter still growing in size, and as part of the recently published Plano Operacional da Economia, soon to be more regionally decentralised) remains one of the key direct and indirect employers in the less favoured most rural areas. However, due to the fact that all public sector posts have to be advertised 29 and the details subject to public scrutiny, there appears to be no requirement that Job Centres be involved, or that they even be informed of public sector posts which may be of interest to school leavers (and others) on their registers.

Currently, in addition to placing youngsters in temporary work in the “social market” (in close liaison with Local Councils and organisations such as the IPJ, the Portuguese Youth Institute), the Job Centre in Vila Real annually finds private sector employment for approximately 600 individuals, and supports self-employment initiatives (i.e. micro-enterprise start-ups) for around the same number, in the 7 counties for which it is responsible (third Focus Group meeting; senior officer of IEFP, Vila Real). The majority of this zone’s population, and therefore the IEFP’s “clientele”, is concentrated in counties such as Vila Real with more substantial urban centres than, for example, SMP where, in 1998, there were 315 registered unemployed in SMP (210 seeking new employment, and 105 first-time job seekers). These figures would suggest that the IEFP’s efforts have a somewhat modest impact on the employment situations of the majority of job-seekers in SMP. Indeed, the IEFP seems to

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have rather most success in placing youth who already have full-time work experience.

Youth who have never had recourse to the employment services have a more positive albeit abstract view of the IEFP’s usefulness and performance. However, first-time job-seekers are the most critical: most of them – speaking from personal experience of being unemployed — considered the IEFP to be at best unhelpful and at worst irrelevant to finding work. They register at the IEFP in order to be eligible for training and/or placements, and not in expectation of ever getting a job. They tend to distrust the Job Centre because of what they perceive as the inefficiency, indifference and/or demotivating attitude of its staff.

They are also conscious of the length of time that passes without any significant action being taken. Official figures for the length of time people been registered at the Job Centre, while they relate to all age groups in SMP, are revealing, as are the comments of selected interviewees: of the 315 people on the Job Centre’s register in 1998, 62 (20%) had been registered there for up to 3 months, 95 (30% for between 3 and 12 months, and 158 (50%) for a year or more (IEFP, 1998).

I’ve been registered there since I was 18, and they’ve never been in touch with me.

Zulmira (24), 22 years old

I registered up there in Vila Real, but they’ve never contacted me for anything.

Rute (08), 24 years old

I had to register three times, and the last time they managed to lose the papers for a training course. It was last September, I went back there, and they said there was something wrong with my application, they’d lost something, and I’d have to start all over again.

Luisa (45), 18 years old

I was registered as looking for work. They sent me a letter for

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me to go to a meeting, or something. I didn’t go. I didn’t have time. I had a bit of work then, but no car, and my father was away. Then they said my registration had been cancelled and I’d have to re-apply.

Olga (01), 20 years old

Only three who had been unemployed in the past – all of whom also had prior experience of full time employment – attributed any of their subsequent success to the employment services, as did some of the very few involved in state-sponsored training schemes. While it is incumbent upon professional advisors to be realistic, there were numerous complaints that Job Centre staff typically adopt such a pessimistic view of employment opportunities that youth were easily demotivated — not from finding work, but from using the employment services for this purpose. Thus, under the prevailing circumstances, youth are forced to become more self-motivating.

I went into the Job Centre to register, and came away completely disillusioned. Honestly, they gave me no help whatsoever. Quite the opposite. All they said was that it was going to be really difficult to find a job, because I didn’t have any experience. Of course, it’s true, but I knew that already. I didn’t need to go to the Job Centre to figure that one out!

Graça (37), 21 years old, seamstress

Furthermore, youngsters also did not speak very highly of the quality of the vocational and employment guidance they received at the Job Centres and their experiences of counselling there were broadly negative. Advice often appeared irrelevant, or at least its relevance was poorly explained, and did not take into account either the personal circumstances of the proposed trainee, or the cost and/or availability of, for example, local child-care services. There appeared to be little concern over the preferences and ambitions of young people themselves, a much stronger emphasis on training than on finding work, and a strong motivation to sign up youth for training courses that were available than to detect what type of training may have be appropriate. While it may reflect to some degree the employment realities and human resources constraints on the ground, as well as the criteria for making local training courses viable, this supply-led approach leaves young people confused and disillusioned, as the following quotes suggest:

When I went to the interview, the lady at the Job Centre said —

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I suppose because I’d worked in the University cafeteria — that I ought to do the 3 year commercial training course that they’d got. [our emphasis]. And I said, that it would be too tiring for me, full-time, as I’ve got kids, and no-one to look after them while I’m studying. And what’d happen if they were ill?

Ana (18), 24 years old

They really messed me around there [at the Job Centre]. You know, they tried to get me to sign up for one of the courses that they said was about to start, and that they were trying to fill [our emphasis]. One was for waiters, and the other was for, I don’t know, something to do with retailing. It’s the government that wants courses; I don’t — I want a job!

Graça (37), 21 years old, seamstress

There is also a strong sense among youth that the Job Centres contribute to rather than combat the pervasive rural culture of favouritism and clientelism, or what the Portuguese refer to as cunha. While the rules may not, in fact, be systematically bent by public officials, or at the behest of parents with connections, the following type of diagnosis, provided by one interviewee, was common enough to raise serious concerns:

I heard from my girlfriends that there are training placements [i.e. the so-called “social market”] that you can apply for, that pay the national minimum wage. You work in the Town Hall, or in a play-school, or something like that. But then you find out that so-and-so is already working at the Town Hall, and she got to know about it at the Job Centre, and you ask yourself, how did she get the job? Oh, you had to apply, and then get selected, she’ll say. But how are you supposed to know about these competitions? And even when they have to be advertised, it’s always the same people who are “in the know”, and who seem to move from one of these jobs to another every 6 months. Selection for these programmes should either be competitive, or not – one way or the other. As it stands, it’s just not fair – it’s always the same people who get the jobs.

Zulmira (24), 22 years old, kiosk assistant

Clearly, there are serious operational and staff training problems to be resolved, if the services provided by Job Centres are to more closely correspond to the legitimate demands of all their clients, i.e. job-seekers as well as firms. Furthermore the employment services have, at the very least,

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a serious problem of negative public perception and confidence to overcome.

Training and employment pathways

Regardless of the level of schooling their children had attained, the expectations of parents played a key role in determining whether youth undertook professional training and what type of courses they followed. Those who had left school having completed 9th grade, those still at school, and especially those completing their secondary studies outside SMP, considered the lack of local provision of training to be the factor that most prejudiced youth employment prospects. The problem was clearly greater for those with higher qualifications: it appeared that the “lesser” training needs of those with lower educational attainment could be more readily satisfied locally.

A marked paradox in the sphere of training is that while many have undergone some sort of professional training, most of it was presented as independent of any specific policy measures. Of the substantial training experience accumulated by around half of the 46 young people interviewed, almost none of it was declared as acquired under the auspices of the Job Centre. Indeed, only two (4%) of the 46 youngsters interviewed were currently in longer term training sponsored by the IEFP, and in the questionnaire survey, 79% said they had never undertaken a government training scheme, though some will have been ineligible due to their having insufficient basic educational qualifications.

If we again exclude those still at school, 20 (or almost 48%) had had sort of vocational training, much of it short-term, ranging from Young Farmer courses, compulsory for those hoping to receive farm improvement subsidies, through customer service training, to myriad computer literacy courses. Institutions involved ranged from Professional Schools, local entrepreneurial associations and the Portuguese Youth Institute, to private training entities.

Furthermore, the details provided by interviews, in combination with our typology of employment pathways, enabled us to check whether the more stable employment situation enjoyed by some, was in any direct way attributable to support and guidance provided by the Job Centre. The training of 18 (86%) of the 21 young persons classified as already having a degree of employment stability, had been undertaken without direct reference to the government employment services, though in a few cases, the IEFP had funded training undertaken by a local employers’ association. In only one third of the 15 cases in which the employment pathway was

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still unstable and/or unpredictable, had any of the training been the result of programmed support by the employment services.

Finally, it should be noted that those young people who enter vocational training are both pragmatic and sanguine about the benefits they may derive from the experience. Both professionals and youngsters alike frequently refer to the fact that, frequently, participation in training courses is seen more a source of income that may, conceivably, improve employability, than any sort of guarantee of better employment prospects.

The existence and strength of social and clientelist networks

Virtually all the youth interviewed strongly felt that social networks were of invaluable support in finding employment. The three interviewees that attributed little or no importance to this factor had had, in fact, no personal experience of unemployment.

Where such relations exist, they may be brought to bear – successfully or not – on the problem of gaining a first foothold in employment. Typically such relationships may link the parents of a recent school-leaver asymmetrically and intra-generationally with those who may be able to offer help, advice, information, influence, or even make the decision regarding employment. Parents have a number of different inputs that may be of use in finding employment for their sons and daughters or, at least, helping them through the difficult period of waiting for an opportunity to emerge: (1) training in agricultural and construction skills; (2) free/subsidised food and lodging; (3) moral support and both “strategic” and “tactical” advice; (4) child-care; (5) land for house construction; (6) influence (cunha); (7) land, capital and other inputs for a small business (self-employment) project to fully or partially occupy the son/daughter’s time and provide a full or part income. Some of the networks are specific to a given extended family; however, there will also be cases in which a young person may have or be able to construct such connections (e.g. through parents of classmates, or through former classmates or fellow trainees themselves) with a degree of autonomy from his/her parents’ social networks. Indeed, school and, to a lesser extent, training courses, do provide opportunities for youngsters to construct their own networks, which may be of use in widening the employment options available to them, and in shifting from a less- to a more-promising employment pathway.

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4.6 LABOUR MARKET CONDITIONS: SANTA MARTA AS A “PROBLEM COUNTY”

Changes in labour market conditions are brought about (1) by the expansion or contraction of the main businesses of the area, increasingly as a result of the impact of global processes on the filières in which local companies are inserted, and/or (2) the impact of new policies aimed directly or indirectly at slowing down out-migration by encouraging employment creation, promoting local small and micro-enterprises, attracting extra-local investment, improving physical and social infrastructure, etc.

For the bulk of respondents, it was the adverse labour market conditions (i.e. the limited job-supply) in SMP county that had the major negative impact on employment opportunities and prospects. While few pointed to their own preference to stay in SMP as a limiting factor, and other small group indicated the transport difficulties involved in working “away”, the other significant response, particularly among young couples living alone, stressed the cost of housing in larger neighbouring population centres as a major constraint on their taking up alternative employment options.

In the third focus group meetings, the member of the Job Centre in Vila Real referred quite explicitly to SMP as a “problem county”, suggesting that, for a number of reasons, it is unlikely that the foreseeable shifts in

16 INE, Population Census, 1991.

17 These figures, as well as the other data in this section were extracted from publications by STAPE – Secretariado Técnico dos Assuntos para o Processo Eleitoral.

18 The number of school leavers annually from the secondary education system totals approximately 60,000 youngsters/year (National Action Plan, Portugal, 2000).

20 In principle, some acronyms or full designations, such as PAIJVA (programme for the integration of youth in working life), INFORJOVEM (computing courses for young people), UNIVA (units for the integration in working life), JVS (young volunteers for solidarity) could be mentioned in this regard.

21 The first programme consists of a State support of a percentage of the rent paid, accordingly to the young persons’ income and age (until the age of 30). The second covers bank loans for house acquisition and consists on lower interest rates and advantages in obtaining a loan of the total amount of the price of the house.

22 The prices practised in SMP are € 10000 and € 5000 cheaper than those practised, respectively, in Vila Real and Régua. The indicative prices are of ¤ 90000 – ¤1000000 for a flat with 2 bedrooms and of € 105000 – € 115000 for one with 3 bedrooms.

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product and labour market conditions will make it any easier for youth to successfully identify and follow satisfactory pathways to stable and quality employment inside the study area. The problematic nature of SMP is not only due to the fact that employment and unemployment trends there are among the most negative in the region, especially for youth and for young women in particular, but also due to a number of other factors, that singly and in combination, exemplify the crisis facing the locality:

(1) SMP is highly dependent upon on the cultivation of grapes and production of wine predominantly for extra-local sale and consumption; furthermore, this type of mainly estate agriculture generates neither significant year-round employment, nor does it leave much value added in the locality;

(2) there is, among youth, an increasingly strong resistance to employment in agriculture – even among those with only modest education and qualifications – despite persistent labour shortages in this sector throughout much of the year;

(3) Vila Real and Régua are local poles of attraction, both for labour and investment, and tend to be where new commercial and service developments (hyper-markets, shopping malls, industrial parks, and clusters of firms in the same filière) will develop, if they develop at all. By comparison, SMP has little power to attract business, investment or new residents, and thus alternative employment options (including self-employment) may increasingly mean moving away from one’s home village or SMP centre (even if only to avoid commuting daily to Vila Real or Régua). The completion of the Chaves – Vila Real – Lamego –

26 Obviously, current employment may continue for considerable time or, indeed, terminate immediately after the interview.

27. The Portuguese team is grateful to the suggestions made by our Irish counterparts regarding the different dimensions to be analysed in subsequent reading of the interviews. While we broadly adhered to their advice, each reading generated further questions and new aspects of the narratives that merited analysis. In this way we managed to continuously combine qualitative analysis with quantitative confirmation.

28 It is interesting to note that the career guidance provided in schools in Portugal tends to be undertaken by psychologists. This says a lot about the theoretical framework adopted when explaining successful – and, in particular, unsuccessful – transitions from school to work.

29 The legal provision is that such publication be, first and foremost, in the Diário da República (the daily State record); the requirement (and, indeed, the practice) of that

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Coimbra dual carriageway may further exacerbate SMP’s marginalisation;

(4) The fact that in SMP economic and political power is highly concentrated in relatively few corporate and dynastic hands, combined with the fragile, risk-averse and conservative local entrepreneurial class, tends to further constrain innovation; and

(5) According to some commentators, including members of the third focus group, SMP as a county town is “soulless”, without consensus regarding a strategy, and without a clear idea of its own identity.

advertising public sector posts in the conventional press appears to vary substantially according to the type of post in question.

3 A recent study of Portuguese youth, their attitudes and opportunity structure, by Manuel Villaverde Cabral and José Machado País (eds.), (1998), Jovens Portugueses de Hoje: Resultados de um inquérito de 1997, Celta, Oeiras, Portugal, 423 pp, .was published recently by the Portuguese Youth Institute. Unfortunately, the research has very little to say specifically about the situation of rural youth.

4 We will use GMI as the acronym for Guaranteed Minimum Income.

5 Throughout, we maintain this way of representing the code number of every interviewee.

10 Mark Shucksmith (2000) "Exclusive Countryside: social inclusion and regeneration in rural Britain", Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

12 We would like to acknowledge the co-operation of the management committee of the SMP secondary school for providing this valuable and hard to collect information. It is worth noting that the SMP school does not offer the 3rd cycle (i.e. university entrance level) of secondary education. The collection of such data reflects the concern of the management committee to monitor the further education of their former students.

13 CCRN, Data Base, July, 2000, <http://www.ccr-n.pt/municipios/smartape.html>. Source: ME/GETAP e GEP, Statistical treatment by CCRN/DRPD.

14 These data were provided by the manager of Caves de Santa Marta Cooperative, one of our key informants.

15 Literally, “cunha” means wedge. In figurative terms is equivalent to recommendation, but in the context of the interviews the word “cunha” can be translated as “to pull a few strings to find a job”.

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Chapter 5

Conclusions and Policy Implications

This final chapter aims at articulating and integrating outcomes of the SMP’s data analyses undertaken and it includes two parts. In the first, we present five major conclusions, which concern the present SMP’s youth status quo. In the second part, seven notes on policy implications derived from the SMP’s data analyses are put forward, and the concern with the SMP’s future “rural development” is a major one.

At this outset, however, it is convenient to recall the exploratory nature of this research, as well as the empirical limits of our sample (see 1.2.2).

5.1 CONCLUSIONS

5.1.1 SMP’s culture is a major element in social inclusion and social exclusion processes

From all data analyses undertaken, a first conclusion may be withdrawn: SMP’s culture is a major element concerning the youth’s social inclusion and social exclusion process, and this should not be ignored by policy-makers. In this work, we have defined culture as common, relatively long-established and stable ways of perceiving and thinking, feeling and acting. So, in this sense, we may recall that all intra-family’s and social networks’ supportive attitudes and practices (both material and emotional) as well as specific customs, such as early marriage and elderly care via a daughter (or daughter-in-law), usually the youngest, have profound implications in

19 This is very to be so because the turn-over of the teaching staff is minimal now, and material and educational improvements have taken place lately. According to the information provided by two teachers, who are members of the SMP School Committee, the school atmosphere is rather close, the teachers know the students well and the parents’ participation in the school meetings is relatively high. Students that move to other schools very often visit the teachers and some may even write letters to them on a regular basis. It is also common that a particular teacher becomes the “moral tutor” of a student whose parents have emigrated.

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? The only data on activity rates that we were able to collect is from the 1991 population census. By that time, the rates of youth economic activity were very alike in SMP and Douro (about 55%, while the average for Norte was 66%).

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terms of “local” employment in the “rural” area studied. Similarly, the ingrained belief in the power of the cunha, as well as its demonstrative effect, impacts inevitably on the pathways to get, or, sometimes, to fail a job. Similarly, both the notion that one should work as he/she reaches “the working age” (leaving consequently the school) and the widespread social devaluation of working in the vineyards, which is certainly linked to a local collective memory of quasi-serfdom, conditions to a large extent SMP youngsters’ search for work elsewhere, via migration. In brief, for the creation of employment leading to social inclusion, culture makes a difference. One senior officer of the Job Centre in Vila Real, one of our key informants, corroborated this conclusion as follows:

I believe that culture is a fundamental issue. In Portugal the distinction between noble occupations and less noble occupations persists yet.

If this key informant’s perception is acute, then the social prestige attached by the youth to the various professions would deserve further research. Policies for struggling against devaluation of specific occupations and professions may be needed too.

5.1.2 For SMP’s youth, employment is not work. Essentially, it is secure, wage-employment

As said above, common perceptions, for example, about work and employment, are part of culture. So, it is worth to aggregate and mould the scattered bits of the youngsters’ narrative accounts alluding to such concepts and to have these in mind as policy measures and local development plans are designed.

For the youth interviewed, work means essentially wage-work, with provision of hard, unpleasant, irregular labour, mainly in vineyards or civil construction infrastructures. Both the start and the end of a “work” relationship may be informal and abrupt. Relatively low payments and lack of career perspectives are also associated to that notion. On the contrary, employment, conceived as wage-employment, not self-employment, has a more formal and relatively stable nature. It is also linked too much more favourable working conditions, being a “fair” salary included. It usually requires some lobbying to guarantee access and some sort of negotiation between the partners involved. To get secure employment is “the most important thing in life”, among other reasons because of the multiplier effect: through employment, the access to many other opportunities

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booms30. Having no employment means that practically all societal doors, one after the other, are kept closed. As one of our key informants, the member of the Job Centre put it:

For the unemployed, the rate of unemployment is 100%.

Of course, self-employment is not ignored by the youngsters interviewed. As we have seen above, a considerable number of them have parents who are self-employed (chapter 2), some help out in the family businesses, and others have even “joint-ventures” with their parents. A few are exploring the idea of having their own business (chapters 3 and 4). However, conceptually, self-employment does not emerge as the ideal kind of employment (not yet?), what may be associated to the high value imputed to the respective risk-taking dimension. Inês (05) and Mário (16), for example, admitted that they were pondering over the idea of becoming self-employed, but they were also very clear about their fears of failure due to economic competition. Rosa (09), who attended a training course precisely designed to promote self-employment and “the entrepreneurial spirit”, also pinpoint to the same risk, specially because of the micro-size of the local market, a view that is shared by some other interviewees [e.g. (43)]. Moreover, it seems that some youngsters are aware of previous, unsuccessful attempts of setting-up micro-enterprises, particularly by outsiders. As Luzia (20) put it:

Here, in Santa Marta, everything [any business] that opens, closes [sometime later].

Thus, for the youth interviewed, employment means essentially secure wage-employment and for many the proper employer is certainly the State. Security throughout the working life as well as the expected value of retirement pensions (as compared to other jobs) are features of public jobs that are much appreciated [e.g. (11) (46)], and they are seen as outweighing a low salary and other disadvantages. Actually, this view is an old, common one. Although both the social environment and market conditions that youngsters are facing today are obviously different from their parents’, their reasons for viewing the State as a patron are equally strong. Indeed, insecurity of employment and inability of becoming contributors to the the social welfare services (and, consequently, eligible as beneficiaries), are constitutive elements of many current jobs, which the youth are aware of. From the youngsters’ interviews we could sense that job uncertainty is part and parcel of the youth/adulthood transition. In fact, they are skipping from job to job, or from occasional to apprentice works, or from precarious work placements to test-jobs, or from training opportunities to open unemployment periods, or from migration-related activities to awaiting

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periods (before the military service, for example).

Moreover, an early return to the field assured that the fluidity of the occupational posts is effectively high, at least higher than we would suppose. Then, at the first focus group meeting, we learned, for example, that the young baker we had interviewed, who was looking for training to be a pastry-cook, but also toying with the idea of joining the Guarda Nacional Republicana (rural gendarmerie) because he knew “someone high up who would put in a good word for him”, had fallen on harder times, and was currently filling holes in the road for the Local Council. Indeed, as stated above (chapter 4), follow-up calls certified that the youngsters’ involvement in the current labour market is rather volatile. Thus, the youth’s relatively common wish and practice31 of integrating any of the police forces may be linked to both the job and post-job security.

In brief, we may conclude that for the observed, “employment” is not “work” and it is mainly “state employment”, even if it is a risky one.

5.1.3 Broken links in the school to work chain

So far, we have underlined local culture, and within this totality, the perception of work and employment, as key elements for the understanding of the processes of socio-economic inclusion and/or exclusion of youth. For this same goal, it is equally relevant to become aware of another major conclusion: in SMP, between school and work there is a sort of broken chain, whose links are one’s potential (personal knowledge, individual skills and social competence, vocational dreams), education (formal and non-formal), training courses, apprentice opportunities, work placements and employment.

Our analyses led us to conclude that, as a rule, the youth’s path from school to the labour market is not only steeply, full of sharp bends and holes, but also crossed by ditches. The first secure employment is a sort of peak that is very difficult to reach, the first work placement may look as a too-soon-to-tell opportunity, and this, or even training courses, may eventually postpone, or impede, steps towards more stable jobs. That is, the transition from education to employment is neither homogenous nor continuous. We observed not only the existence of a set of five pathways (chapter 4), but also, in every case, a gap again and again. Personal vocational dreams, even rather modest, are too far away from schooling. The school itself matches neither the local society nor the market, whatever this might be: local, national, and global. Training opportunities are usually unlinked from formal schooling and adult education as well as from jobs and employment. Under these circumstances, the following key informant’s

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reflection makes much sense:

To me it seems very negative youngsters doing jobs that they don’t like, that does not make them feel fulfilled in vocational terms. There are people that adapt, but there are others that do not ... And then there is also the question of young people training themselves for a certain type of work and then finding out ... that there are no openings for them. They’ll ask, “what have I been studying for? There’s no employment!’

In brief, the world of youngsters’ dreams, the world of school and the world of work are not unified into a single universe.

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5.1.4 Many of SMP’s youth, particularly the more educated, experience unstable and fragmented employment in the course of their school-to-work transition

Another major conclusion concerns the access and nature of employment opportunities. The youngsters are fully aware of how difficult is accessing the national and the local labour market, particularly for those having no experience of being employed once. At the village level, not only TV spreads gloomy news about employment, but also informal channels circulate quickly bad news concerning close friends and acquaintances. The SMP’s youth know, for example, that some fellows who were able to enter into higher education have unsuccessfully been attempting to get a job for long (much more than expected) time. These frustrating cases, which erode the value of education, particularly higher education, have concrete names: Francisca, the anthropologist; Joaquina, the primary school teacher, and Cristina (34), the sports teacher, as well as all her colleagues with the same degree course. The young people also exchange views about other surprising cases such as: the teacher of math who accepted a post of school porter; a graduated girl who failed to get a post in the Local Council, in detriment of a less educated and politically involved competitor. Among the SMP’s youth, it is also a rather common perception that the concelho is under the centripetal force of Vila Real and Régua, and, thus, the possibilities of industrial and commercial development, and, consequently, job creation, are squeezed. The figures concerning the time spent in full time employment since leaving school (chapter 4) corroborate this view and underline the unstable and fragmented nature of the employment many youth experience in the course of their school-to-work transition.

Another type of information also reflects the youth’s concern about the difficulties of getting an employment. At the time of interviewing SMP’s youngsters, we attempted to collect their suggestions concerning political and policy measures for promoting employment. In spite of the paucity of the data collected, it is worth mentioning that Sebastião (14), who is a member of a paramilitary force, explicitly pinpoint to the need of governmental support for overcoming the vicious circle of being un-employed due to lack of experiencing the first employment. In his opinion, the first job seekers should be specifically targeted and cherished. Surprisingly, early retirements and fewer expenses with elderly people’s social benefits were also indicated by a relatively high number of respondents [(09) (16) (20) (21) (22)]. We have interpreted this information as hinting to a certain anti-elderly sentiment. Is an inter-generational conflict becoming latent? As we already know, some demographers have raised this hypothesis.

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5.1.5 SMP youth pragmatically revise downwards which rung on their “wish ladder” they expect to finish on

In their path to adulthood young people encounter multiple difficulties, some of which are certainly normal. Others are abnormal and may be aggravated by the personality traits of the young people concerned. Throughout both the fieldwork and the analyses, we got the view that, in general, SMP’s youth seem to share a rather pragmatic attitude of accommodating oneself to the current situation and reviewing downward the initial personal dreams and vocational wishes. As time goes and accessing the means to get the initial target fails, the revision can be profound. Any “deviation” may have perverse, feedback effects and enlarge the gap between the former ambitions and the current occupational status. Thus, one may reach the stage of accepting “any” third or fourth choice of “secure” employment, or turn to the condition of awaiting for migration. One of our key informants, a social worker working closely with the poorest people, revealed great concern with youngsters’ “apathy”. She spoke emphatically of their demotivation in looking for work in Vila Real and Régua, and raised the two following pertinent questions:

Actually, what’s going on? Why are they [unemployed youngsters] subject to that apathy? They are too young and why they stare at life in such a way?

As mentioned above, the “pragmatic”, “realistic” attitude cannot be disconnected from other relatively common attitudes: the attention that youth pay, and the openness they reveal with regard to opportunities available, the predisposition to leave and get a job elsewhere, and a gradualist, step-by-step approach to the resolution of their problems. In this sense, deviations from initial wishes may be only temporary. So, there is not a simple and definite accommodation to circumstances, and the number of youngsters determined to do “something” is bigger than we had thought initially. Out of 46 interviewees, we would include in a “pro-active youth” category about 8 youngsters [(05) (09) (10) (19) (20) (32) (33) (37)].

Anyway, the overall picture that the research data provides may be expressed as follows: SMP’s youth seem to acknowledge that social structures outweigh personal agency.

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5.2 POLICY IMPLICATIONS

The set of points presented below, which are more action-oriented, result from the SMP’s data analyses, and aim at the reflection on SMP’s future “rural development”.

5.2.1 An introductory key note

From a theoretical viewpoint, policies are instruments designed to “correct” or “consolidate” social structures and processes, thus moulding the future, so to speak. Both a certain area (in this case, SMP) and a social category (in this case, the rural youth) may be specifically policy-targeted. From this perspective, it seems pertinent to recall three main points raised in the discussion of the sixth paradox (see chapter 3):

- the youngsters’ prognosis of the future of SMP was bleak and pessimistic;

- their view on the policies and public services was also a sombre one;

- in spite of this, among the interviewees and from a personal viewpoint, there was a relatively common willingness to stay in the area.

Considering the SMP’s future rural development, no doubt, this specific willingness is a major asset, albeit an immaterial one.

5.2.2 Formal education: personal and vocational dreams, as well as “professional” schooling should be respected and promoted

This research led us to accept that the current conditions in the SMP secondary school are on a trajectory of improvement as compared to those recently experienced by the interviewees32, i.e. over the preceding ten to fifteen years to which our interviewees’ recollections and reactions relate. It also led us to think that neither premature school leaving (i.e. dropping out before either compulsory years of school attendance have been achieved, and/or before the youngster’s potentialities have been realised) nor successive repetition of the school year due to failure, are not caused exclusively, or even mainly, by youngsters’ own learning difficulties. The typically negative connotation attributed to early school leaving could be interpreted, after all, as straightforward customer dissatisfaction and/or a positive (though not necessarily very objective) attitude with regard to seeking an satisfactory occupation.

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The research also revealed that the main diagnosis of secondary school problems has already been undertaken, the main features of and factors in the situation being well known. Neither is the appropriate therapy unknown, either. The teachers’ own comments contain the remedies, as the following statement, from a female teacher (and member of the Management Committee of the SMP secondary school), suggests:

Teaching continues to be rather theoretical and they [the students] increasingly want more practical things. It is common knowledge, for example, that the computing room, attendance at which is free, is persistently overcrowded with students every day.

Any subject that we teach can be taught both ways: more theoretically- or more practice-oriented. However, teachers feel the pressure to follow the [whole of the official curricular] programmes, and this means that often the more practical issues are not dealt with.

Other informants, young and adult, have also underlined the value of closing the gap between the school and the real world “out there”, which implies paying much more attention to activities that are familiar to the youngsters, such as, for example, TV-radio-and-music listening, sports, local visits and excursions beyond the confines of their community, etc. We may recall that the “professional education” is rather popular among students in their late teens. In brief, having in mind all the narrative accounts collected, we believe that professionally-oriented education should be strongly encouraged. The very low number of students attending this type of schools also reinforces this conclusion.

In brief, from a policy viewpoint, it seems necessary to perceive and design the school as a place where personal dreams and vocational aspirations are valued, not ignored, nor subject to a “downward revision”. On the contrary, the school that is solicitous in pleasing its “clientele” will create opportunities for youngsters’ talents, skills and knowledge to flourish. It would, as a matter of course, emphasise personal counselling and professional and career guidance. If these changes are not promoted quickly, there is a very clear limit to how long youngsters will continue to believe – however generally – that continued education may have both personal and material benefits.

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5.2.3 Non-formal, continuous education: the need for tailor-made programmes

We observed that among youngsters in SMP there is a common and relatively pronounced unwillingness to contemplate the continuation of or return to education. Increasingly, local youth no longer take it for granted that extensive education is a guaranteed means of gaining employment or to a job. The one does not necessarily imply the other. Moreover, difficult access to jobs among those who have attended the latter phases of secondary (and indeed higher) education, devalues education in general.

Surely, the obstacles to extended education are not insurmountable and among the respondents we interviewed, it was possible to detect signs that education may still be seen as a path to be pursued further. But under the current circumstances, both formal and non-formal “adult” education emerges as a highly demanding policy and action domain.

Successful interventions would certainly demand tailor-made programmes. At least, the following conditions concerning the participants’ profiles are required: detailed knowledge about the school/family life history; full recognition of the past and current experience, abilities, knowledge; and, last but not least, clear identification of both the personal dreams and professional aspirations. From the side of the educational offer, minimal conditions would include: wide and creative menu of problem-oriented disciplines, and fields offered; life- and work-oriented programmes and methods; adequate provision of material conditions.

Briefly, one may say that both formal and non-formal “adult” education has to be built upon the strong motivation of the “students” concerned. For both the school dropouts and the young people who get tired of education, the gaps between the school, personal dreams and the world “out there” have to be closed. More and better provision of vocational guidance as well as information on education opportunities and professional careers is urgently needed. Otherwise, youth may limit drastically their dreams and wishes, accommodating themselves to the frustration of the third or fourth job choice. Or, even worse, they may simply succumb to despair.

5.2.4 Public training: the need for more and better opportunities

To find ways of filling the gap between the formal school and training organisations, the IEFP, in particular, constitutes a fundamental institution. Three suggestions are put forward: training organisations could act as mediators between the school and regional enterprises, establishing links in order to make it possible that students be taken into employment “on

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probation”, either during school holidays or even during specific training periods throughout the school year. To move many of the current, essentially introductory computing courses from the training organisations to the secondary school would be another way of closing the links in this broken chain. School leavers, whatever the grade that they have completed, should be identified at an early stage and stimulated to follow the “rotational learning” provided by the IEFP (chapter 2). Without this concern, public professional training would not respond to the most disfavoured youth.

We may add that the public training system needs to supply more locally–based (concelho), regular and diversified training opportunities. Particularly, it should promote courses adapted to both the current and future needs of, on the one hand, the regional market and, on the other hand, local enterprises. We cannot ignore that the “institutional actors” participating in the third focus group unanimously agreed that in SMP there is much room for current job-related training activities; two of them further underlined that local enterprises are usually unable to bear training costs. Only rarely does a local entrepreneur wish to fazer o empregado, that is “to mould” the employee via in-job training. Nor can we ignore that the manager of the Caves de Santa Marta informed the same focus group about the great success of the co-operative’s recent initiative of a course targeting semi-skilled women employees. Close co-operation with community associations and organisations of entrepreneurs would help in achieving both the needs assessment and the identification of trainees. With respect to future needs, we would suggest the development of language courses as a way of assuring quality of tourism services. Some youngsters, such as Filipe (46), who lived abroad and returned to SMP, as well as the youngsters that like foreign languages, would certainly increase their employability very rapidly if their inherent/acquired multi-lingualism were recognised as a resource, rather than as an irrelevant curiosity.

With respect to the specific domain of professional training, a final consideration concerns the effectiveness of the related initiatives. While the relation means/ends should obviously be kept as a main concern, the indirect effects of training should not be underestimated. The data collected suggest that, from the participant’s pragmatic viewpoint, any training opportunity (even those that are not tailor-made), ultimately may contribute to social inclusion. Besides the knowledge and skills that they may offer, the pocket money provided and the positive psychological effect of overcoming the condition of being a first-job seeker or an unemployed, such learning situations may also help to identify the undesired jobs or activities. Moreover, social networking, which is usually rather

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instrumental in assuring a job, may be extended and reinforced and, to some extent, placed more under the youngster’s own control, rather than that of his/her family. In brief, training opportunities (these being tailor-made, or not) may be rather instrumental in promoting both current and future social inclusion.

Both the direct and indirect benefits mentioned above justify more and better training opportunities for SMP’s youth.

5.2.5 Employment opportunities in SMP: there is room for manoeuvre, at least on paper

No doubt, job creation is a very difficult exercise. SMP’s regional and local context provides both constrains and opportunities, although nowadays the former outweigh the last. As we have seen above (Paradox 1, chapter 3), youngsters living in SMP believe that vineyards hold no future for anyone. It is certainly true that, on the one hand, wine production is bound to seasonal activities and that mechanisation and rationalisation has reduced the demand of labour, but, on the other hand, the youngsters’ view is a very simplistic one. There is some room for manoeuvre if one considers that the current business of producing quality table wines and Port may be diversified and linked to multiple tourism services. Next, we shall indicate some job opportunities that can be envisaged in this context.

To begin with, medium and big estates and farms usually face a shortage of labour. Bearing in mind the total area under vineyards and the volume of wine produced, the creation of micro-enterprises for rendering high quality technical services (for which training would be required) to the more needy farms may be a direction worth exploring. To a certain extent, some empreiteiros are moving towards this path, though without any particular concern with labourers’ working conditions and the quality of the services rendered. They merely act as recruiters of wage workers.

Some medium and big wine farms may pass from the position of grape-growers to wine-producers, selling their production directly. This line of adding value to the primary produce is spreading and may develop much further, thereby also creating more employment opportunities for skilled youth. For instance, wine specialists, wine sales staff, accountants, people specialised in publicity and public relations would be necessary.

In the Douro some tourism services (particularly, sightseeing by boat and associated services) are booming and others, such as tourist ‘trails’ linking historic wine estates, visits to archaeological sites, board and lodging in rural houses, recuperating old hiking and rambling paths, tourism based on

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local gastronomy and wine-tasting, etc., may all be developed extensively. From this perspective, local job creation is not a cul-de-sac, even though the exit route suggested here may not extend very far.

Within the framework of economic diversification of existing family firms (in trade, transport and other services), or within the framework of setting up new family-sponsored businesses, we may consider that some more jobs could be created in SMP. High quality board and lodging for tourists is an example, although the demand would have to be fostered.

Social welfare services to be rendered to the elderly and children living in the Douro region may also provide ways of creating some jobs for SMP’s youth as well as stimulating the creation of new small businesses. Some of these young people would become local community educators and social workers, occupations that are very close to some of the interviewees’ dreams. In this respect, it is worth recalling that alcoholism is observed among men and women, and to some extent among youth, constituting a key factor undermining both family harmony and children upbringing.

5.2.6 Some key prerequisites for creating in loco the required employment opportunities

The creation of the above mentioned types of jobs, will most likely depend more on the way the existing policies are implemented than on the availability of new policy instruments. Apparently, the public services concerned have a very formal and passive posture towards their potential “clients”. The challenge would precisely be to do in a different way what is most obvious and closest at hand. This means that public services need to have a pro-active attitude, approaching seriously both local youth and partners (schools, parishes, firms, political parties, the Local Council, etc.).

Having in mind the data collected on the quality of services rendered, it seems indispensable that public organisations in general, and the IEFP, in particular, may gain greater credibility, trust and polish their tarnished public image. It seems to us that a new path cannot be open without this first step. The setting up of an IEFP “information counter” in SMP would possibly be a useful means of closing the gap between that organisation and youth. Taking into consideration the findings concerning the imperfections and closed circuits that characterise the circulation of public information, in general, and that regarding employment, in particular, it would also be indispensable to make greater and persistent communication efforts in order to reach the potential young beneficiaries i.e. those the policy and measures ostensibly target. There are numerous rural development support measures available in the EU’s and Portuguese financial frameworks,

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which require much more active diffusion of information. Those measures concern, for instance, the creation of firms in the services sector, the setting up of young farmers’ business, investments in processing and commercialisation of farm products, and in tourism, etc.

Increased diffusion of public information, improved proximity to the young clientele and greater attention to the need to improve both performance and reputation of public services may help in the creation of training opportunities and employment for SMP’s youth, but the above-mentioned pre- and post-farm production jobs (either farm-centred or off-farm-complementary activities) require a further essential prerequisite, that we might called the three Vs: vigorously valuing viticulture. Surely, this is a distant and difficult peak to be scaled; nevertheless, a radical improvement of working conditions on the farms is needed and this is the first stage of the upward climb. Otherwise, the exodus from the fields and terraces will continue, as the following statement from a key informant suggests.

They [the youngsters] see their parents as having had a hard life, so they do not wish to repeat it themselves. This is so because many of them help their parents a lot. Some don’t even like the school holidays [the emphasis is ours]. The life that they have here [in the school] … isn’t as hard is as working in the fields.

Meanwhile, additional, prolonged efforts need to be made in order to value vigorously SMP’s viticulture, the keystone of the local economy. These actions should be addressed to all local communities in the Douro, and in particular to the primary and secondary schools. In fact, it may seem paradoxical, but it looks as if it is necessary to embody into the local culture and society a set of viti-“culture” components that are part and parcel of its own constitution. For instance, the following three viti-“culture components”:

the socio-economic role of viticulture in the whole Douro region, and particularly in SMP is very high;

Port wine is the premier high-quality, world renowned Portuguese product par excellence, which is increasingly sought after in demanding international markets; and

the Douro’s potential economic development is relatively high.

Both other Portuguese and outsiders alike take these elements for granted, but, apparently, SMP society still has some way to go before they are locally assimilated, so to speak.

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5.2.7 A final key-note

If SMP’s future rural development, and particularly creation of employment, is effectively a concern to be taken seriously, then the set of policy-related points presented above, as well as many others, cannot be dealt with separately and from a short-term perspective. Both the articulation and integration of socio-economic policies in the area concerned and in the long run are essential means for achieving those goals. The ad-hoc and/or disjointed implementation of policy measures may have no impact, or even perverse effects, such as fostering socio-economic exclusion. One of our key informants raised his voice against this current and wholly unacceptable situation, as follows

Our world, this ‘hinterland Portugal’, is ending. It has been ruined but I cannot accept it. I believe that people have the right to organise their lives in their homeland, in the place where their roots are.

May this research work contribute to the SMP’s youth social inclusion, especially of those who are quite understandably subject to apathy – be they youngsters searching for satisfactory employment, or policy-makers scratching their heads over how best to achieve this, and related, objectives.

32 See endnote Error: Reference source not found.

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Notes

2 We use the acronym SMP or Santa Marta as equivalent to the county’s full name of Santa Marta de Penaguião.

7 Portuguese words are in italic. Interviewees’s expressions, which were translated into English are also in italic.

8 CCRN Data Basis, <http://www.ccr-n.pt/municipios/smartape.html>, July, 2000

23 In terms of economic development indicators, the Northern Region of Portugal is divided into three quite disitnct parts (1) a highly urbanised coastal strip (from Viana do Castelo to the metropolitan area of Porto, down to Aveiro in the South); (2) Greater Porto’s immediate hinterland, stretching as far inland as the Barroso, Marão and Montemuro mountains, which contains a number of both large and intermediate economic centres such as Braga, Guimarães, Santo Tirso, Paços de Ferreira, Felgueiras. Penafiel, São João da Madeira and Oliveira de Azemeis). These two zones together (forming the NUTS Cávado, Ave, Tâmega, Entre Douro e Vouga and Grande Porto) contain the highest concentration of industrial activity in Portugal. (3) Beyond the mountains (hence the name Trás-os-Montes) and further up the main river valley, lie the predominantly rural and thinly populated interior NUT III sub-regions of Alto Trás-os-Montes and Douro, extending to the Spanish border with Galicia (in the North and North-east) and Castille and Leon (in the North-east and East).

24 It is impossible to specify exactly how many youth enter the labour market each year in SMP, since the data on school leavers is collected according to the county in which the school is located, and not where the student is resident. However, some indication can be provided by the fact that, for example, in 1999, 105 persons were seeking their first (rather than a new) employment.

30 For example, to work daily as a postman, on a short-term contract, and take an evening class of an adult education course is surely better than to be unemployed. However, only a stable job would allow that postman to have access, for example, to the legal and academic benefits of a Portuguese with the status of a “worker-student”.

31 Sociological research on the composition of the Portuguese para-military forces has demonstrated that the regions of the rural interior have provided the bulk of the contingents, at least until recent times.

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