As Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva once put it, "A country without children is a nation without a future." He was, of course, referring to his country’s ultra-low birth rate, which is just over 1.3 TFR and has been below replacement level (2.1 TFR) since the early 1980s. In 2012 only just over 90,000 children were born in the country, the lowest number in more than a century – you need to go back to the 19th century to find numbers like those we have been seeing since the crisis really took hold. But added to this longstanding, yet unaddressed, problem there is now another just as dangerous one. High unemployment levels and the lack of job opportunities are leading an increasing … [Read more...] about The great Portuguese hollowing out
portugal crisis
Bailout beckons as Portugal’s Sócrates resigns
Try, try again… then quit. Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates stepped down late on Wednesday saying “today, I am convinced the country is lost,” after a last-ditch effort to push through new austerity measures and avoid a Greek-style bailout failed to win support in the Lisbon parliament. The resignation of Sócrates and his minority centre-left government effectively pushes Portugal into the arms of the European Union and the IMF, with many analysts now saying that the debt-laden Iberian state can do little to avoid following in the footsteps of Greece and Ireland, both of which were bailed out last year when their bond yields reached unsustainable levels. At around 7.8 percent, … [Read more...] about Bailout beckons as Portugal’s Sócrates resigns