The national minimum wage, which today is 820 euros, was implemented for the first time fifty years ago and its real value at that time was 629 euros, if we discount the accumulated inflation and consider the consumer price index, according to a portrait by Pordata, released within the scope of the 50th anniversary of April 25, 1974.

The document prepared by the statistical database of the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation points out that, since the revolution, work has been carried out with more rights, after years of disinvestment in education during the dictatorship, with the reduced years of compulsory schooling, and the poverty that led many children to work from an early age.

According to the 1960 Census, more than 168 thousand children were working and, in the 1970 Census, around 91 thousand children, between the ages of 10 and 14, were registered, indicates Pordata.

The entry of women into the labor market was another of the great transformations that occurred with the revolution. According to Pordata, in 1970, only 25% of women aged 15 or over worked and, in 2021, this value reached 46%.

The document also highlights "the profound change in the distribution of workers among the major economic sectors".

In 50 years, the weight of labor in agriculture and fisheries (primary sector) has decreased considerably, as well as in industry (secondary sector) and, on the other hand, employment in services has grown and work has become more tertiary.

In the year of the revolution, 35% of the employed population worked in the primary sector, 34% in the secondary sector and 31% in the tertiary sector, values that in 2023 became 3%, 25% and 72%, respectively.

The data also show that it was only in the 1970s and 1980s that "an effective Social Security system was implemented, in the sense of extending social protection to the entire population and improving the coverage of social benefits".

Between 1974 and 2022, according to Pordata, old-age pensions granted by Social Security increased from 441 thousand to around 2 million.

"There have also been important advances in the creation of protection measures for children and families, or for situations of greater vulnerability, such as unemployment or poverty", indicates the document.

Examples of these measures are the Social Supplement for the Elderly (CSI) or the Social Inclusion Income (RSI).

The importance of social protection is visible in the increase in Social Security social benefit expenditure, which more than doubled, from 5% to 12% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), between 1977 and 2022.

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