…at least half of a population of ten million inhabitants depend on the state in one way or another— 35% are retirees, 10% are civil servants and 5% receive either unemployment benefits or integration benefits. They would see a country with fewer young people than before; they would see what is in fact, after Italy, the second oldest country in Europe, with 23% of the population aged over 65. And they would further see that, like so many other democratic and less democratic countries, Portugal holds elections. and that these elections will, once again, pit the country’s aging population against its youth.
So-called “seniors” are reliable voters, unlike young people, and so this perverse incentive ensures that seniors are, in effect, voting to extract rent from young people through the state. It is reflected in voting intentions: people over 54 are disproportionately likely to vote for the Socialist Party, while those under 25 are unlikely to vote for it.
One in three people aged 15 to 39 have gone abroad. Here is more from Vasco Queirosvia The browser.
