The welfare state and rural society. The enhancement of resources and the redefinition of strategies in a new context: an agriculture involving multiple activities

Abstract

The extension to the rural sectors of the Portuguese population of certain social rights which embody the welfare state - in view of the moneraty expression and irreversible nature of such rights - constitutes a significant change in the relationships between rural society and its environment. However, the universality which characterizes social policies does not prevent the different circumstances of individuals within the family and the community from producing a varied range of material and interpretative effects of such measures of economic redistribution. By focusing on those situations in which an agriculture envolving multiple activities prevails, the author tries to explain some of those changes by emphasizing the enhancement of resources and the reformulation of individual and family strategies related to or arising from the fact that the older members of the rural  population are receiving a pension.