All citizens at least age 18 are eligible to vote. Voters directly elect the president, who serves a five-year term, and members of the Assembly of the Republic. Elections to the Assembly of the Republic must occur at least once every four years; seats are apportioned to parties (voters cast ballots for party lists rather than for individual candidates) on the basis of proportional representation in multiseat constituencies. Although Portugal utilizes a proportional system, two parties are dominant: the centre-left Socialist Party (Partido Socialista) and the centre-right Social Democratic Party (Partido Social Democrata). There are also several minor parties, including the conservative Popular Party (Partido Popular) and communist and ecologist parties. Voters (including EU citizens living in Portugal) also elect deputies to the European Parliament, the EU’s legislative body. Women, who were first granted the right to vote in Portugal in 1931 (though the franchise then was limited to women with university degrees or secondary-school qualifications), have made great strides in postrevolutionary Portugal, regularly constituting about one-quarter of the members of the Assembly of the Republic.

Security

The Portuguese military is commanded by the president, who also appoints the chiefs of staff. Formerly, military service was compulsory, but conscription was eliminated in the early 21st century. The armed forces consist of an army, an air force, and a navy. Before passage of the National Defense Law in 1982, the military had veto power over legislation affecting it, including expenditures and international agreements. Portugal was a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949, and it is also a member of the Western European Union, which serves to coordinate European defense and security policies.

The Portuguese police are divided into four categories. The Public Security Police (Polícia de Segurança Pública; PSP) and the Republican National Guard (Guarda Nacional Republicana; GNR) are under the control of the Ministry of Internal Administration. The GNR includes the road police and has jurisdiction over rural areas. The PSP patrols urban areas and directs city traffic. The Fiscal Guard (Guarda Fiscal), which is stationed at frontier crossings and points of entry and is responsible for collecting import duties and investigating smuggling and other violations of border regulations, is under the supervision of the Ministry of Finance. There is also a judicial police force, the Polícia Judiciária. The crime rate in Portugal is low, and the decriminalization of virtually all drugs in 2001 made Portugal a test case for law-enforcement agencies around the world. With rates of addiction down and rehabilitation programs replacing incarceration, the Portuguese experiment was widely heralded as a bold response to a pressing public health issue.

Health and welfare

The Portuguese welfare system is composed of several types of institutions that insure workers against sickness, disability, and old age and provide for the payment of pensions and family allowances. Compulsory insurance is provided by employers in most sectors of business and industry; employees also pay into the fund. Trade-union provident funds and welfare funds for other employees provide assistance for most categories of workers, and there are voluntary mutual assistance associations and provident institutions for the military forces and civil servants. Many large companies maintain their own welfare and sickness benefit programs and pensions for their employees.

Portugal has both public and private hospitals. Major hospitals are generally located in the main district capitals, and other hospitals are found in smaller centres. There are also several hundred other health centres. Charity hospitals (santas casas da misericórdia), which were first founded in 1498 when the Irmandade da Misericórdia (Fraternity of Mercy) was formed in Lisbon by Leonor de Lencastre, the widow of King John II, are funded by a national lottery and play an important social role, especially among the elderly. Special institutions include a cancer hospital and research unit in Lisbon, a school of tropical medicine, and a modern rehabilitation centre for people with disabilities near Lisbon. The health care system was long undermined by inefficiency, funding shortfalls, and a shortage of doctors, though, beginning in the 1990s, the government began to address the system’s endemic problems. A major reform of the health care system was undertaken in 2002 with the goal of reducing costs and increasing efficiency. Key challenges for Portugal’s national health service in the 21st century included balancing the needs of an aging populace with the costs associated with providing the necessary care.

Housing

Article 65 of Portugal’s constitution proclaims that all citizens have a right to “a dwelling of adequate size satisfying standards of hygiene and comfort and preserving personal and family privacy.” It further requires the government to establish housing policies that are “based on urban planning that secures the existence of an adequate network of transport and social facilities” and to create a “system of rents compatible with family incomes and of individual ownership of dwellings.” Nevertheless, particularly in urban areas, Portugal has suffered from substandard housing and severe housing shortages. Dwelling size is small by European standards. However, the rate of home ownership is fairly high, some two-thirds of dwellings being owner-occupied (a marked increase from 1970, when only about half were owner-occupied), and comparatively few owner-occupied homes carry mortgages (though the proportion of mortgages has increased as home ownership has grown). In rural areas the situation was no better, and many places were not electrified until the 1990s. During the 1980s, shantytowns consisting of several hundred thousand dwellings (many of which were unsafe) were constructed on the outskirts of metropolitan areas, particularly Lisbon and Porto. The government began to address poor housing conditions in the 1990s, when it adopted measures to increase and improve the housing stock for less-affluent people. Overall, property values are high, and some of the most desirable apartments are those in residential blocks built in the riverside area east of Lisbon that was cleared in the late 1990s for the World’s Fair (Expo ’98).

Education

Early education for children age 3 to 6 is available for free, and schooling is compulsory between the ages of 6 and 18. Education has become a high priority of government funding, particularly since the late 1980s, when a study found that one-fifth of the population over age l5 was illiterate. By the beginning of the 21st century, the literacy rate exceeded 90 percent, and nearly every child was enrolled in school; however, failure rates remain high, and child labour, prevalent especially in the north, has not yet been eliminated. Private schools supplement the state schools, which provide free education for the majority of people. There are several public and private universities, including the long-established University of Coimbra (originally founded in Lisbon in 1290, relocated permanently to Coimbra in 1537), the University of Lisbon (founded 1911), the Technical University of Lisbon (founded 1930), the University of Porto (founded 1911), and the Portuguese Catholic University (founded in 1968 in Lisbon). There are also technical institutes, nursing and technical health schools, military academies, and several specialized schools for subjects such as the sciences and hotel management.