Economic growth in Portugal during 1960-1973: structural change adjustment of the offer to the labour demand

Abstract

The acceleration of the economic growth in the sixties and beginning of the seventies was a common trait for the most part of the OECD. Nevertheless that acceleration was stronger in the less developed European countries than in those more industrialized or in the whole set of the OECD countries. In the following period, nevertheless, the disacceleration of the expansion rhythm is obvious, the growth rates being lower than in any other previous period within the OECD area except Turkey till 1975 and Ireland. The behaviour of the Portuguese economy followed the general trend as far as the other countries of the peripheric Europe are concerned. In the first period the Portuguese growth rate was only slightly higher than the Spanish one and lower than those of Greece and Turkey. In the second period the growth rhythm in Portugal was the very same as the Spanish one, being surpassed only by that of Greece. Finally, in the third period, the growth rate of the Portuguese economy fell to a level lower than that of the remaining countries of the peripheric Europe. The present article aims to the analysis of some aspects of the Portuguese economic growth in the period of an accelerated growth (1960-1973), including namely the analysis of the change in the production structure of the Portuguese economy and that of the adjustment mechanisms of the manpower offer as to the internal and external demand, a field in which the author finds the simultaneous functioning of mechanisms of manpower scarcity and excess: the male employment decrease  the female activity rate and by keaping the male activity rate at very high levels.