Vidas incertas

: dinâmicas de vulnerabilização económica e desqualificação social da classe média em Portugal

Abstract

The present thesis entitled " Uncertain Lives ": Dynamics of economic vulnerability and social disqualification of the middle class in Portugal, has the purpose to analyze the vulnerabilities that affect middle class families, pursuing the comprehension of the dimensions related to economical crisis, income and family breakdown, social disqualification and social suffering. In this context, we have also analyzed the approaches used by Social Workers in the assistance of new differentiated publics that increasingly search for social support. This empirical research adopts a qualitative approach and is based on twenty interviews of middle-class citizens who experience or experienced social disqualification. The interviews have the principle of maximum heterogeneity. Complementarily, we have interviewed five social workers from different sectors of activity (i.e. health, social security, municipalities, justice public services and non-profitable organisations), with a professional relationship with different publics. This research suggests that all the interviewees suffered from processes of downward social mobility or dynamics of stagnant ascensional mobility, and that a large part of the citizens do not seek for social services, mobilizing support networks and family solidarity instead. The analysis of the interviews also allowed us to identify different expressions of social suffering resulting from different phenomena such as unemployment, marital breakdowns, labor precariousness, significant changes in consumption patterns and lifestyle, downward social mobility, lack of prospects for the future and social disqualification. This aspects are more prevalent in female citizens. From the point of view of the intervention of social workers, the current changes in the relationship between social worker and the middle class publics are expressed in a greater capacity by the latter group in the analysis of social policies, in the perception and evaluation of services, and in higher levels of understanding the mechanisms and procedures. From the present study, we can draw implications related to public policies and the professional practice of social workers. The first implication raises the question of public policies for the social protection of citizenship and their non-adequacy as instruments to support middle-class citizens affected by economic and social vulnerability processes, given their low coverage pattern risks and needs. Secondly, the searching of social services for these citizens, despite its reduced weight in the sample of the present study, remains as a challenge to the modus operandi of social workers in terms of social accompanying of this public, in the same manner relevant to intervention with their traditional clients.

Date of Award	6 Sept 2019
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Francisco Branco (Supervisor)