Delivering Quality Services to All in Alentejo
Preparing Regions for Demographic Change
This publication is part of the OECD workstream on Preparing Regions for Demographic Change. It elaborates a case study for the Portuguese region of Alentejo and focuses on improving the delivery of educational services taking into account the multi-level governance context. The study highlights the need to better articulate and co-ordinate the delivery of educational services among levels of government to improve access and quality. It also sheds light on the decisive role that geography plays and the importance of adopting a spatial lens to mitigate the rising inequality present in Portugal in access to education services. Alentejo is a rural region that expects to lose 30% of its population between 2020 and 2080, hence it needs to put in place forward-looking and effective policy levers to delivery sustainable education services to citizens living in rural communities.
Assessment and Recommendations
As in the rest of Portugal, Alentejo is experiencing population ageing and low in-migration due to the preference of nationals and migrants for coastal areas. Alentejo is Portugal’s TL2 region with the highest share of elderly in the population (26% of +65) and lowest share of foreign‑born population (4%). These forces, which have been gradually sustained over the past 50 years, have contributed to increase the ageing gap in Alentejo with respect to other Portuguese regions, and have contributed to economic and social decline in some municipalities. Indeed, more than half of the municipalities of the region have experienced sustained and strong population decline in recent decades. According to preliminary 2021 census data, Alentejo’s population shrank at an annual rate of 0.72% on average between 2011 and 2021, four times faster than the national average (0.17%).
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