Equal Opportunities, Fair Work and Social Protection: Impacts of COVID-19 on Young People in Portuguese Rural Territories

Abstract

Several internationalSocial Protection organizationsInternational Organizations, as well as worldwide scholarship, haveYoung People abundantly shown that young peopleYoung People under 34 are among the groups struggling the most with COVID-19COVID-19 economic and social impactsImpacts. Seldom, however, does scholarship focus on the uneven effects of the pandemic on younger generations across different types of territories. Overall, young peopleYoung People in rural territoriesRural Territories tend to face much greater adversities. These territories concentrate less population, show strong ageing trends trend and depict a lower settlement rate. Rural younger generations struggle to strive, because rural areasRural Areas depend heavily on declining economic activities, such as farming, are plagued by precarious jobs, and display limited institutional supportInstitutional Support compared to (sub)urban areasUrban Areas. In PortugalPortugal, the country’s population is unevenly distributed between affluent, high-density coastal areas and inlands and archipelagos with a considerable rural predominance. The COVID-19COVID-19 crisisCrisis has the potential to further stretch the existing inequalitiesInequalities among young peopleYoung People due to spatial distribution. Therefore, in this chapter, we discuss the impact of the recent pandemic crisisCrisis on rural Portuguese young people. We will do so by characterizing headline indicators in the three domains of the European Pillar of Social RightsEuropean Pillar of Social Rights, namely equal opportunitiesEqual Opportunities (e.g. Early School Leavers from EducationEducation and Training), fair working conditions (e.g. YouthYouth UnemploymentUnemployment), and social protectionSocial Protection and inclusion (e.g. at risk of poverty and social exclusionSocial Exclusion). We expect to reach an initial comprehension of the challenges faced by rural Portuguese young peopleYoung People in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis in three domains: education, employmentEmployment and social inclusion. We also discuss how more nuanced territorial conceptualizations (e.g. low-density areas) and policymaking can add alternative views about young people’sYoung People living conditions due to subnational disparities.