Decentered Well-being: Work and Social Inequality in Portugal's Urban Networked Territories
Event Title
VI ESA RN37 Midterm Conference - Decentered Cities: Overlooked Urban Narratives and Shifting Centralities
Year (definitive publication)
2025
Language
English
Country
Portugal
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Abstract
While growing inequalities and their consequences are evident across economic, social, and political dimensions of contemporary societies,
existing research often prioritizes cross-country analyses, overlooking intranational disparities and their specific place-based expressions.
This paper addresses this gap by offering a new perspective on Portuguese territories.
Drawing on official data from Statistics Portugal (INE), we conducted a multivariate quantitative analysis, employing both hierarchical and
non-hierarchical cluster methods to Portugal's municipalities. This approach yielded a robust typology of territories, defined by 12 municipallevel indicators including social class, income, education, population density, and age structure.
The analysis identified five distinct territorial configurations within Portuguese society: «Industrial Territories in Transition», «Intermediate
Territories», «Urban Networked Territories», «Innovative Territories» and «Low-Density Territories». These configurations reveal how spatial
formations intersect with structural forces to shape differentiated patterns of inequality across the Portuguese municipal landscape.
Focusing on Urban Networked Territories - characterized by dynamic work relations and socio-economic diversity - this paper explores the
intersections between individuals' experiences and decent work, a key component of well-being. It analyses how categorical (sex, age, social
class) and distributive (economic and educational) vectors of inequality mediate the experience of work, and how territorialized inequalities
reinforce or mitigate access to decent labour conditions.
By examining micro-level experiences within these typologies, this research contributes to current debates on inclusive urban development.
It highlights how territorial inequalities function as a structuring condition for labour insecurity and the uneven realization of well-being, thus
posing critical challenges to the construction of more socially just urban futures.
Acknowledgements
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Keywords
Português