ABSTRACT
The reduced level of unemployment in Portugal has concealed the persistence of very diverse forms of work, some of them undoubtedly pre-modem ones. On the eve of the restoration of democracy at the beginning of the 1970s, Portuguese society showed clear signs of rurality and low indices of modernization. The Portuguese economy, having changed so profoundly and now undergoing the effects of increasing world recession, was unable to regain its balance, and entered a crisis. Portugal’s entry into the European Community in 1986 reinforced this orientation, although causing important changes, particularly at the level of the labour markets, not always convergent with European policy. Self-employed workers in Portugal are less well covered by social security than wage earners, owing to the fact that until very recently they were not included in the national contributory system of social security.
