Putting young people at the centre of priorities

Margarida Balseiro Lopes, Minister for Youth and Modernization at the ICPT

Text: Chris Graeme Photo: Fernando Bento

Portugal’s Secretary of State for Youth, Equality and Modernisation outlined three core pillars to support the country’s youth, improve equality and modernise public administrative services at a lunch organised by the International Club of Portugal (ICPT) on Tuesday.

Portugal had been living in an environment where the immediate was prioritized over longer-term structural planning because of short electoral terms which imposed a logic of short-term quick-fix solutions that conditioned and constrained public policies when time was needed to carry out deeper reforms.

This pattern not only comprised solving structural problems, but also affected the solving of challenges that required a consistent and long-lasting approach to replace an outdated model that was no longer sustainable.

The balance between responding to the demands of the present and building a strategic vision for the future was one of the key challenges of Portugal’s democracy

It wasn’t always easy to fund this balance, said the minister, since structural investments required consensus, time and continued effort to ensure that a plurality of perspectives did not turn into paralysis.

In a world where everything was speeding up, reducing the available time for strategic visions, Portugal was “losing the ability to think and act strategically”.

A country that limited itself to “reacting instead of planning” would always be a step behind. “How can we guarantee that investments react in time to bear fruits, and are not constantly postponed or downgraded in terms of priorities.

“This is not just a theoretical reflection but a political choice. Anticipating the future cannot be seen as a possible eventuality but rather as a necessity”, she said.

Three strategic areas

The Minister outlined three strategic areas within the ministry for the present and the future, which if not resolved today would result in a higher price paid tomorrow: Youth, Equality and Modernisation.

Ignoring them, she said, would compromise Portugal’s future, which was why since it has been elected, the government has placed Portugal’s young people at the centre of its priorities.

“Portugal has today a huge challenge. An aging population, a low birth rate, and the emigration of qualified young people overseas that threatens Portugal’s economic growth, the sustainability of its social security system, and the actual sustainability of the country.”

“Either we guarantee conditions so that young people can remain, grow and build their life projects here, or we condemn Portugal to a spiral of losing talent and stagnation”, she warned.

So what is the Portuguese centre-right Democratic Alliance government of Luís Montenegro doing about the problem?

Investing in Portugal’s youth – housing for young people and student accommodation

“I can confirm with certainty that there has never been so much invested in youth people in Portugal as there is today and they have never had such relevance on a political agenda”, she said.

The measures were:

a) Extending the IRS Jovem (IRS Youth) policy so that young people have more disposable income and can therefore plan their future in greater security;

b) Facilitated access to housing, with the first steps having been taken. Portugal had one of the worst records in the EU of cases where young people are forced to continue living at home because they could not afford to get on the housing ladder.

Since August 2024, young people up to 35 years of age, do not have to pay property taxes on their first homes and since January of this year can secure a public guarantee on a downpayment to buy their first home.

In effect, it means that the State guarantees up to 15% on the transactional value of a property worth up to €450,000.

And for those who opt for rental, the government has restructured and expanded the Portal 65 Jovem scheme to a wider number of young people aged 35 or under without the need for a contract, simplifying the application process while reinforcing their budget by more than 65%.

c) Investment in student accommodation at affordable prices since the high price of rents in students’ ‘digs’ is one of the main reasons why young people give up further education.

In fact, in cities like Lisbon and Porto, renting private accommodation had skyrocketed, reflecting Portugal’s current real estate boom driven by lack of supply and high demand, with landlords making more money from tourism lets than student rentals.

However, at a Council of Ministers meeting in May 2024, two measures were approved to tackle this problem.

University students that didn’t have grants were awarded with a 50% government paid subsidy on their accommodation costs if they came from outside the city in which they were studying.

The government also signed partnerships with youth hostels (Pousadas da Juventude) and the Inatel Foundation to increase the number of student beds by 709 nationally while by the end of 2026 the Government’s National Plan for Higher Education Accommodation will deliver 18,000 beds for students studying away from home.

“Since this will take up to two years, we’ve actioned an emergency plan whereby we’ve managed to provide an extra 1,000 beds for students, making a difference for them and their families”.

In terms of psychological support and mental health, the government was also providing 100,000 consultations with psychologists and 50,000 with nutritionists free for further education students.

“We cannot develop public policies for youth without involving young people in designing the policies”, she said referring to a National Youth Agenda – a strategic document that is currently being drawn up with the input of young people’s ideas.

Emigration – an alarming problem

But are all these pro-youth policies and investments favouring young people and discriminating against the rest of Portugal’s society?

The Minister thinks not. “This investment that we are making is indeed an investment in youth, but in the long term it is an investment in the future of this country because this country cannot afford the luxury of educating young people only for them to leave with other countries getting the benefit of this education.”

“We need these young people here, working in our companies. A young person never leaves alone; they always leave behind them the parents, the grandparents, and friends, so when we took these decisions we weren’t just thinking about young people, but also their families who suffer from such emigration which has been happening at an alarming level.”

However, it was about providing young people with options. “Whoever wants to leave Portugal because they feel its their purpose in life – no problem at all”, she said, adding that experiences overseas could be “highly rewarding”.

The problem, said the minister, was when they moved overseas, not because of a choice, but rather because young people felt they had no other option but to work overseas because of a lack of conditions and opportunities in Portugal.

A fairer society and equality in politics

And this was interlinked with the issue of justice, fairness, human rights, dignity, but also social and economic questions.

Fairer societies were those that were more prosperous, more innovative and resilient. “There is no innovation without diversity, no sustainable growth without inclusion, and no structural development without firm commitments to equality,” said the minister.

Investing in equality was not a cost, rather an investment; an investment that generated a return in greater productivity, innovation and economic growth.

And like any investment it demanded vision and commitment. Equality needed to be treated across the board and promoted at all phases of policy from conception to planning and implementation and evaluation of public policies.

Domestic violence against women

One of the most glaring problems highlighted by the minister was that of domestic violence against women in Portugal.

According to the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality (CIG) 1419 people of which 49.54% were women, 48.8% were children and 1.6% were men who had suffered domestic violence between April and June 2024.

And the police registered 7,738 call outs or complaints filed – up 12.49% on the same period the year before – while in the first three months of 2024, eight women were murdered as a result of domestic violence.

“This is the crime that is most registered in Portugal and we can’t ignore that fact. The State Budget for 2025 brought the highest investment ever on measures to combat domestic violence – €26 million distributed across various governmental areas – to provide a more articulated and robust response”.

But throwing money at the problem was not enough. There needed to be a change in cultural attitudes and a collective commitment on the part of society as a whole.

“Changes don’t happen from one day to the next, and mentalities don’t change according to laws” the minister reminded.

Closing the gender gap on pay

Also pay inequality between men and women continued to be a problem in Portugal. In 2022 men earned on average 12.5% more than women or €242* per month (*CNN Portugal) while in management the differences were even higher at 25%.

“This means that women with higher education qualifications on average earn €600 less than men with the same qualifications,” she said.

This, she stressed, was a structural problem that needed concrete remedial measures. And inequality was not just confined to salaries but also equal opportunities and access to them, career progression, better life-family balance, and the way in which sexual stereotypes continue to inform choices.

To counter this life-work balance problem the minister said that the government was investing in measures so that no one would have to choose between career and family.

And there continued to be a huge disparity between men and women in the technology sectors, where only one out of every five specialists in high technology and engineering areas are women and only three out of every 10 professionals working in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEMS).

“This structural imbalance cannot be ignored and this government will not ignore it. Digital transition is changing and shaping the global economy, opening up new markets and opportunities for highly qualified professionals earning competitive salaries”.

“This provides an enormous opportunity for technology and innovation, but we want to ensure these opportunities are accessible to all and not waste the talents of half of the population,” said Margarida Balseiro Lopes.

One initiative regarding the opportunities presented by digital transformation and mitigating its effects was launched on December 12, 2024 through a national programme to enable more girls to develop educational skills and have more opportunities in STEMS areas.

Making public administration more modern and efficient

And the minister stressed that no country could grow if it was shackled to an obsolete model of functioning, and no society could prosper if its government was a barrier to its own development.

“No public policy, no matter how well intentioned it is, can have a real and positive impact if the State is sluggish, bureaucratic, out of date and maladjusted to current requirements of both people and companies”.

“It is vital to make the Portuguese State more agile and efficient, and tailored to the needs of people”, she added, pointing out that there were 1,250 government websites and 113 applications for public services. “This situation undermines the confidence of our citizens, makes navigating difficult, and makes simple tasks lost in a veritable bureaucratic labyrinth”.

To solve this problem the government passed a law in 2024 to scrap unnecessary websites and applications while migrating all existing ones to the single site gov.pt as the sole entry point for all public services,” concluded the Minister for Youth and Modernisation, Margarida Balseiro Lopes, highlighting just some of the improvements; which included AI innovations in areas such as the National Health Service; which the current administration has introduced to make Portugal’s government more modern and agile to meet the needs of society and the challenges of today’s technological revolution.

Photo: Minister for Youth and Modernisation, Margarida Balseiro Lopes with President of the ICPT, Manuel Ramalho.