By 7.30 on a summer night, Lisbon’s beautiful streets are beginning to fill with visitors taking selfies, trailing from bar to bar and wrestling with the conundrum of where to have dinner.
Margarida Custódio, who sits at home with her three-year-old daughter, Pilar, has more pressing matters on her mind. Like so many people in Portugal, where rental prices make a mockery of the low salaries, Custódio lives through a monthly agony when it comes to covering the costs of her flat. Despite a good job in human resources, she earns €930 (£795) a month after tax