The first time I came to live in Portugal, almost 10 years ago, I was I came as a foreign student to the University of Coimbra, and the Brazilian government paid for everything. My first surprise was to realize that many of the Portuguese people I met had never worked before the age of 21; this was especially true in the largest cities.
Some were 25 or 27 and were looking for their first job ever. In Brazil, on the other hand, it is very common to start working earlier. Out of necessity, not because we are workaholics, of course. My first job experience happened when I was only What this implies is that those around me could obviously only be people whose families were able to afford their admission and permanence — not to say other ordinary family expenses, such as housing, electricity, water, food, clothing, leisure.
This also means that a significant portion of the people living in Portugal, Portuguese-born or not, had no access to higher education. It was , and Portugal was going through a crisis due to the austerity policies of the government. The situation was such that even I, a young student with a government grant and few financial responsibilities, felt the difference within the short space of two years. Because their families were in debt.
Those who were still there, if not simply rich, went to work in bars at night as part of a complicated effort to finish their studies.
Most of us probably already know the arguments. It took me a few years to find out, and I did so as I was becoming more and more a feminist activist, attending debates and participating in social intervention projects, that this was more an argumentative tactic than an observable concrete reality, and even less an effective proposal. In fact, if in Portugal it was more common to find prostitutes in college than in, for example, Brazil, where it is pretty much visible that prostitution is a direct consequence of homelessness, poverty and hunger, it was only because college was inaccessible, and pushing women into prostitution.
