From Vocational Dreams to Pragmatism

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 Portela

Chris Gerry

Patrícia António

Carlos 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 17

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

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 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

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

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

iv

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.

iv

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 4th Framework Programmeme for Research, Technology and Development[1].

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 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 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 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 Income[4] 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. 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.