Originally Posted by
Viriatus91
People in Portugal often blame Salazar for the country's backwardness, but forget just how backward the country he inherited was. In 1930, Portugal's literacy rate stood at 38.2%. The only country lower in Europe where this was lower was Albania with 19%.
In Italy it was 75%, Poland 69%, Spain 69%, Greece 60%, Romania 57%, USSR 40%. The only regions in Europe comparable or lower than Portugal in Europe were Eastern Poland, Thrace in Greece, Bessarabia and southern Yugoslavia (present-day Northern Macedonia and Kosovo). Even in Sicily, Southern Italy and Sardinia it was over 60%.
Portugal's 1930 literacy rate was comparable to England's in the late seventeenth Century, France's in the mid-eighteenth century, and Spain and Italy's from the 1870s. By 1970 the literacy rate reached 74.3% of the population. Many of the schools in Portugal were built under Salazar, mostly rural one or two room school houses, and even then for most of the regime schooling was only required until the 4th grade, though this was extended to 6th grade under Marcelo Caetano.
Despite this, per capita GDP growth in Portugal was equal to or better than many of the other peripheral countries in Europe. One has to keep in mind just how far behind they were compared with their peers.
1950-1973
Greece 300%
Spain 250%
Portugal 239%
Bulgaria 220%
Romania 194%
Yugoslavia 181%
Hungary 126%
Poland 118%
USSR 113%
Czechoslovakia 101%
Ireland 99%
1973-1989 per capita GDP Growth
Ireland 58%
Spain 51%
Portugal 47%
Yugoslavia 42%
Greece 32%
Czechoslovakia 24%
Hungary 23%
USSR 18%
Romania 13%
Poland 6%
1989-1998 per capita GDP Growth
Ireland 83%
Portugal 29%
Spain 28%
Poland 23%
Greece 15%
ex-Czechoslovakia -2%
Bulgaria -24%
Romania -34%
ex-Yugoslavia -34%
ex-USSR -72%