Around one in six (16.8%) of Portuguese citizens aged between 15 and 34 have dropped out of at least one level of education during their academic path, a new study by Statistics Portugal has found.
According to Statistics Portugal’s 2024 Labour Force Survey module on ‘Young people on the labour market’, more than half of those that have dropped out did not complete tertiary education (50.8%), with the main reasons cited including financial or work-related pressures (30.1%) and dissatisfaction with or difficulty in the course (28.2%).
Reasons for dropping out
Some 7.1% mentioned ‘health problems or the need to look after dependent family members, including children’ as a reason for dropping out, Statistics Portugal said.
‘One in five (20.5%) said they had another personal reason (e.g. change of living location, lack of motivation, conflict with teachers or other students, desire to do other activities) and 14.1% said they had a reason other than one of those already mentioned’.
‘Financial or work-related pressures’ was cited more commonly by men (32.9%) than by women (26.3%), the data showed.
Within the group who had tertiary education experience, around one in eight (12.4%) had completed vocationally oriented qualifications at the upper secondary or post-secondary level, indicating that they gained some work experience through their education.
Education levels
Among those aged 16 to 34 that are either currently employed or have previous employment experience, around a fifth (20.8%) felt their education level exceeded the requirements of their job, while 22.7% felt that they were ‘overqualified’ in terms of skills.
Elsewhere, in the sub-group of those who have completed upper secondary education or higher, 41.3% considered that their field of education either fully or almost fully meets their job requirements.
Statistics Portugal‘s Young people on the labour market module focused on identifying abandoned educational paths and the reasons for discontinuing these, as well as on the relationship between job requirements and young peoples’ academic training and skills. Read more here.
