Attitudes and Threat Perception: Unemployment and Immigration in Portugal

In all the survey research conducted in Portugal since the 1980s, unemployment consistently appears as one of the top problems (see Bacalhau and Bruneau, this issue). In a nation-wide poll made in 1996, unemployment was the main concern for one in every three interviewees, ranking right after drugs (Publico, 1 May 1996: 2). Moreover, in spite of low average earnings, 85 per cent of those interviewed admitted they would give up wage increases in order to avoid job losses in their firms. Three quarters of the respondents even reported that they would accept a reduction in earnings (as the counterpart of less working hours) in order to prevent an increase in unemployment.