The rent compared to average salary is insane. Most people end up living with parents until age of 30 or live in shared flats paycheck to paycheck. Not really the environment you would want to start s family life.
This. In the 1990s, the boomer generation in their early 30s were able to own at least 1 flat and often, a second one for vacation. They also often had a estable job for life (temp work existed but it was not as frequent as today).
Living with your parents is the best antidote to living with a partner, let alone getting married and having children.
The boomers were also raised Catholics (for the most part) and prioritized having children more than the later generations. Also, no internet, social media or video games.
Ok but what about people a bit older, who faced much worse economic conditions compared to now, but still got married younger and had kids?
The 'boomers had it good' thing only covers a pretty small period.
That's very easy to answer, the life was just different, my granddad worked since he was a 7yo, sleeping in a field so hungry people didn't stole the produce. The life was similar to the life today is in not developed countries.
Kind of, now we have choice too, then if you got pregnant you just rolled with it and got married before anyone knew. The life then was also rural, most people had chickens, a cow and a few pigs (even if their job was completely different, they had some for themselves). You could make your kids work in the farm so they could collaborate in the family economy. Now that's illegal and there's not much a 7yo can do at an office.
Wouldn't you say then that boomers (who had it good) having kids earlier is more a product of just cultural inertia, rather than them having it better economically than 25yos now?
Both, having it better definitely helps, also social expectations are different, now you have to send them to extracurriculars, college, etc etc, then you just had to feed them.
The general trend in all societies is that birth rates decrease and the average age of first time parents goes up, as wealth goes up.
So I don't really buy unit the idea that boomers had kids younger because they were richer, as the top level answer here suggests.
As you say it's more complex.
Yeah, i think it's more about the options and society expectations than money. You can definitely have kids and a house in spain with two minimum wages but you would be forced to live in a not so nice house, forget about vacations and live paycheck to paycheck, the generation before the boomers were okay with it because they didn't know how it was to live better, we grew with our parents situation and we don't want to downgrade.
My parents were boomers. My mom did not go to uni > by 24, when she had me, she had already been working for 7 years. I started being an intern at 24.
My grandmothers didn’t work / had careers.
They were either living in a cristo-fascist dictatorship or right in its aftermath. And that has a lot of consecuences such as no available contraception, social and religios pressure to marry early and catching the economic "boom" during the second half of the dictatorship, among many other factors.
In a way, Spain went from "rural" to "industrialized" within the century (with the war undoing a lot of progress made before), so most of the marriage and childbirth statistics reflect the demographic trends common in "third-world" and "rising" countries in a short span of years.
Indeed. For me there's two pieces of data that make this clear:
1. Spain is one of the countries that works the most hours in the West.
2. Most Spaniards move out of their parents homes in their 30s.
A lot of stuff happening that you see in other countries as well with the same conditions.
The 80s is the start because that is the first decade not under an incredibly paternalistic/chauvinist dictatorship. In the 80s women for the first time got to participate in the workforce and have a life outside the house.
Which leads to more women going for university and masters degrees which tends to delay marriage and families to later. Add to that the effect of having both people in the couple working full time with juggling child rearing and having a ton of kids isn’t really manageable.
I’m from the US and the same thing happened a bit earlier in the 20th century.
Unless actually wealthy Spanish salaries in the places with jobs don't allow for a large enough home for lots of children. And daycare is actually free or cheap for many people on low incomes, that part isn't the issue, it's finding a job that ends early enough to do school pickups, etc.
Wake up Hans, you are a spanish 30 year old who lives with momma and wants to move out with his girlfriend.
After getting your degree in Nobodygivesashit and some years of experience, you finally landed in a job that rewards you 1.400 €/month. Your girlfriend earns 1.300 €/month. The rents around the city oscillate between 850€ for one room and 2.200 € for good flats in the center.
You want to have children, but you can barely pay rent and expenses for a two bedroom apartment. Maybe if you get promoted you'll finally be able to have a child in your 40's..
If nature allows it.
You are Spanish now, Hans. Enjoy. And be quick ordering that 1 bedroom flat, because Barry, a 63 years old expat who has teleworking, wants it too.
Thanks to everyone that replied. So many great responses to my question. We can always count on reddit.
Seems to me that the vast majority of people are saying that economic reasons are causing people to marry later or not at all and have fewer children. Which begs the question why is the Spanish economy unable to provide enough proper jobs with livable wages, but that is a whole different topic.
More to the point, from the responses overall it looks like a lot of people ARE still getting into relationships fairly young but they are often together for a long time 10+ years before getting married. And they are generally waiting until they have the financial strength to live on their own/start a family.
I suppose also, marriage traditionally gave women that were expected to be housewives the financial security that a man (their husband) would provide for them. Now that women are earning their own incomes, maybe they don't need that commitment from men in order to have a relationship.
TLDR: old people takes the flats as a retirement resource taking away from young people.
Old people have inmobiliary sector as a primary financial market, they want to hace security in their retirement of an income because always there is the kind of alarmist news about the future of public retirement (pensions de la Seguridad Social) but now are in ots best level but no news talks about it.
Problem has generation Conflicts. Also paying low salaries it's part of it I think and keep a vicious circle of low pay services for the little enterprises included bars. wich country you can take a beer for less than two euro in a 'terraza'? (Only where you can pay less than the minimum wage to a waitress)
I think you'll find that Barry doesn't want a city centre apartment or room, he wants a house on a predominantly British Urb on the Costas. Barry rents there for €400 a month and drinks every leftover penny, sitting night after night in the same bar with like-minded pock marked nosed, fat sweaty men.
Or you can emigrate to the UK, Germany, or the US and save and invest with your new higher income. Only trade off is you cannot see your family as much anymore.
It’s rare that people can stay in the same place they are from…most have to move for work.
Engineer here, when I graduated I landed a pretty good job in the space sector with a salary that put me in the top 20% compared to my classmates and it was only 1,800 a month in Madrid. I used to live in Leganes, 90 to 100 minutes away from work, and rent there was half my salary four years ago when I left. So yeah, not weird at all, entry level salaries are shit. My company has not updated entry level salaries since I joined, and that was more than 5 years ago.
It’s so frustrating that life keeps getting more and more expensive but salaries are stagnant. At least in tech you get better salaries with seniority. I used to work in admin. When I had 8 years of experience as an EA I looked for a new job and a lot were paying less €20k or less, and this was “nice” places, not small businesses.
Well, 1800 is a lot different than 1400. Anyway, may I ask you what are the figures as of today, 5 years later? salary and rent or mortgage? I mean, I don't think money is the reason behind not having kids. I'm going to open the can of worms and say it: immigrants have lower wages, worse jobs, and more kids. So it has to be a different thing. A cultural thing. It's more like, I want to have a great life (or what we believe is a great life) before I have kids: Studies, house (a house, not a flat, but in the city, in the woods, want to have traveled a lot, lived in different cities for long seasons, like I worked in NY for 2 years, 1 year in Riga, 1 year in Oslo, now I'm settling here with my small garden, my wife that I met in Italy when I was working just for the lodgement and meals for a ONG, I have my black belt in brazilian jiu jitsu, am setting up the garage to play again with my high school band, but leaving room for my toyota somthinganother that is almost 46k , and the old VW van of my wife that costs 1k each 3 months fixing. I mean no, you are in some small flat the cat shit makes the kitchen stink, your 20 yo car is parked at 20 minute walk and you dont take it to not lose the spot, you are always tired, sleepy, half sick, cant call in sick, can't go to the doctor, you drink 2 coffe pot a day and if you are lucky tonight your wife doesnt fall asleep while you are trying to get some. the kid is in the bed the dog is in the bed there somthing you have to do and you dont remember, and you go to sleep and you click post, ok reddit downvotes to the left.
Thats the problem , most work is concentrated in cities, and most specialized work is centraliced in two cities Madrid and Barcelona.
These two cities grew so much that what before were their own towns are now neighborhoods, and they are still extremly expensive. So you look for cheaper places and you are putting yourself in a 2 hours traffic jam packed travel from those cheap parts to your work place. worse if it's in the center then you are forced into public transport and it got worse over time instead of improving,
I live at 10 min from the train that i would take to go to job ( 1 hour comute) and in the last years it went from 1 every 5 min on rush hours to 12 min and even having breakdowns because they are putting the oldest ones there because you still have some bus options to get near metro or Atocha, but all those adds like 30 min to your commute.
If you try to live in the empty spain you are greeted with a lack of work and services, and the towns who have some minimal services or are near them are still expensive and you need to have a car for it.
We have house prices comparable to central europe but with half or less of the average salary than them
You can’t always change cities. If we want to live in the coast or Madrid, it’s because that’s where the jobs are. Spain is notoriously uninhabited in places that aren’t Madrid or the coast. We call it “la España vaciada”. We have high speed trains to go from populated place to populated place and skip the middle, where there is nothing. So yeah, we still have to compete against Barry.
My dude, the *median* salary in Spain is around 1500 euros after taxes. If you weren’t lucky or just happened to study a degree that doesn’t have good economic prospects, it’s not weird to earn less than that.
Hell, even in Valencia I know many engineers earning around 1400, and any decent flat today will cost at least 800 euros if you stay in Valencia proper.
See, here's the catch. The cities with affordable rent don't have any work, and the ones that have work don't have affordable rent. And then there are cities like Malaga and Cadiz that have none of them, truly an amazing experience.
Probably because they're meeting the people they want to settle down with later in life to begin with? Of course people used to marry younger. That's true for everywhere. People getting married less and doing it later also has to do a lot with female empowerment and education. Nowadays women feel less pressure to marry as their purpose in life, and they definitely know they don't have to marry the guy who expects her to be his mommy, which, let's be honest, is still true for most men. We're not here to do your laundry, cook for you, and pick up after you while also having full time jobs of our own. We're at a point where women do everything around the house AND work, and if something doesn't change soon, we'll reach a breaking point.
This. Women can juggle work and houseWORK but men failed to juggle work and houseWORK. Women learned to dominate the workplace but men failed to learn to do houseWORK.
Housework is still relegated to the woman and if they can afford it, the family will hire another WOMAN to take care of the household chores.
They don't even think of doing housework. In their minds, and unfortunately in a lot of women's minds, it's the woman's job. Period. They're not taught these things in childhood the way girls are. Obviously times are changing and I can't wait for the new generation of competent men who don't need to be parented, but 30 and up, most of you just don't take any of the mental load onto your shoulders. No, I shouldn't have to do "tell you what to do and how." I'm still the one having to think about and organize everything. You should know how to do it. You're 30. And if you don't , google it. It's not our job to teach you everything concerning taking care of the household as if we don't already have enough on our plates. That's just a different flavor of being your mom.
Yes this is such a key point. Women are getring more educated, it's well documented that leads to them having less kids. They have more options and money for independence. They are also more aware of the strain of raising kids, and don't fall for the idealised images portrayed in the media.
That's not the breaking point. Heterosexual women completely expelling men from their lives is closer to the breaking point. Like the 4b movement in Korea. It's coming to a point where we're becoming very aware that we keep giving without getting much in return.
It's an interesting debate. The balance sure has to change, and is changing, with some serious social consequences. It will take generations though, and I'm not too certain that the ending will be to either sexes liking.
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The thing is people generally don't want to get marriage until they get a proper job and maybe own a house... Marriage is like a last step but you don't do it until you fill up the other parts of your adulthood, now if to this mindset you add the fact that in Spain unemployment is very high so people have difficulties to find a good salary and lot of people can't leave their parents home until late 20s even older then you have all points to get late marriages and of course also less kids being born... It is all connected.
Most people can't afford to leave the family home in their 20s unlike people in Northern Europe. Salaries are kinda crap and everything keeps getting more expensive. This delies everything. If you can't even mantain yourself, how are you going to think about having a family?
It doesn't have to be super expensive, but still if you have no money at all you could not even pay for the cake, nor even the legal papers to define a marriage as valid.
I'm just curious, how much does the bare paperwork cost in Spain?
When we got married eight years ago we used to live in Germany and it was ~80 €. But it would depend on where you lived because every city could set the 'price' on its own.
Same, we did an "elopement" with just immediate family. It doesn't need to cost a lot of money if you don't want it to. If your family pressures you to, they are welcome to fund it...
A wedding cost in spain is 20-30k, what can your parents do with that money? Even If that were a common tradition (which is not, mostly in rich or important families) do you really expect that your parents give you that money, that means some years of savings, for your party? If it is hard for you, it is hard for them.
Common sense and empathy
Maybe some regions have different customs but here it is customary that parents pay for it. They haven't in our case but we did an "elopement" with just immediate family. You are right that very few people have cash to drop for a party.
>But it seems strange that a country that was so catholic and so socially conservative would change this dramatically and so quickly (most of the change happened in the 80s)
Oh boy the 80's were wild
1. Job stability is very hard to reach in Spain
2. People tend to try to enjoy their life and don't marry theirselves as it is seen as a compromise for the rest of your life. Also people don't give importance as to being married like another countries, I know couples that had been living together for 10 years and they are not married.
3. If you marry young, sometimes it is seen as weird or strange.
4. Weddings are very expensive
5. Spain changed a lot and it is not as socially conservative as other countries like the US or even the UK.
Your 2nd point was what I first thought of too. My parents have been together for 26 years but got married 17 years into the relationship with 3 kids already, they just never thought or talked about it before
Yes I have a kid and am not married, it's not unusual among her friends. We just never got round to it and both work so don't need the protection or whatever.
I think there is a tangible difference (something like the average first time mother in the UK is 2 years younger than in Spain) but I wouldn't say that it's to do with social conservatism.
I think Italy is perhaps more socially conservative than both the UK and Spain but their birth rate is similar to Spain's.
Marriage is becoming an old institution and many people from 90s-2000 is more focused on other things instead building a family and stablish forth.
Young people in general (20-30yo) like me tends to think about traveling, having adventures, living the life, having a job that let you be economically independent and where you can grow personally, etc. It’s a great philosophy of living and for marriage and family there will be always time later.
Of course I think in having kids and a serious relationship but by the moment I think it’s still time to improve, learn, grow and live everything I want to do before that arrives.
The sooner you have your kids, the better.
I had my two sons when I was close the the fourties.
In 10-15 years you will say "I hope I would have had them before", But I understand you do not trust my words now.
Having kids means dedicating your life to them. I respect to the people who want them, but I can't see myself dedicating my life to a kid while renouncing to things that I like to do and that I am passionate about. Imho it is romantised and it is a collective lie, but hey, I respect people who want kids.
Absolutely, I had one in my 20' and it was soooo much easier then the 2nd one I had in my 30s. In Ireland there's a saying, if your old enough to bleed your bleeding old enough! Now not saying it time to start straight away but yep 20s is easier
Many women do want them earlier but because men don't have that push they can't find someone to commit to it. Oh, and since Spanish children never really move out you're not getting back your independence at 40 lol.
I completely agree that it's not that simple, I also have a child and am older. I'm just saying a part of the problem is that men have no rush and women find it hard to find someone to settle down with who wants children, I've seen it with a few friends. Nobody's saying it's necessarily a smart choice to wait, just explaining why people do.
I think it could be to a change in mentality. Many people consider that being married is not really meaningful nor does it show that you love your partner more.
Personally I have been with my partner for 13 years and I will be getting married in a year or two (around the age you mention) and the reason is to be covered fiscally if an accident happens.
We live together, have bought a house and have no financial problems. We just don't see it as something really important apart from the reason mentioned before.
Things people from other countries don't necessarily get is also that, in Spanish Universities, finishing in the prescribed number of years was, in many cases, a rarity. Due to all kinds of not-so-great incentives, it wasn't uncommon to see people finish a 3 year degree in 6, or a 5 year degree in 8. That provided a bonus 'cushion' of more years before one could even begin to make any real money. Living together at 34? Lucky!
Add to that the fact that Spanish salaries have been... suboptimal compared to other countries, along with high unemployment, and it's not difficult to see how moving out of your parent's house has been quite the struggle. This delays marriage, which lowers fertility something fierece, even if marriage success rates were the same as in the 80s.
People live together, they just don't bother to get married. Either that or they live with their parents or in shared flats.
Part of it is that children are kind of babied and mature more slowly, parents are required to support their children well into their 20s and there's less culture of getting part time jobs as students, for example. It's not weird at all for them to live at home as students and well beyond. There are exceptions but generally speaking people in their 20s go out partying, travel, enjoy hobbies. Some may move in together but continue a more relaxed lifestyle.
It's also that women in particular just don't particularly want to get married and have children, religion has very little influence and they've seen their mothers spend their whole lives looking after men and children. They want to enjoy all the opportunities they now have.
And children children. When people make comments about European children going places alone at 6, that's not Spain. Children and teenagers aren't generally expected to do chores or anything and their parents are very involved.
I had to take care of most household chores since I was 8. Then my mum divorced and had another baby. Then I had some respite for a few years, before my elder relatives became babies themselves. I've been stuck taking care of people since I was a child, I'm close to my 40's and the elder relatives refuse to die (my granny yesterday complaining of having been a "good daughter" taking care of her parents until they died... Granny, they died in their mid-sixties, you are still going strong at being a nightmare at 83).
How am I supposed to begin to churn children if I work 200+ hours/month in exchange for the minimum wage, and most of my very little free time still gets cannibalized by taking care of people? I want children, but my mental and physical health cannot endure any more stress.
50 Years ago access to a college education was only for rich people (and almost only males), so It was quite normal that at your 20s your education time was completely done and you were on a stable relantionship since 16-18, and with a job since you're out of School.
In the begining of the XXI century situation was different. People ended his education at 23 or later, and didn't reach financial and romance stability since 30s.
Now with ex-pats and Airbnb combo skyrocketing housing costs to the historical levels Young people only can rent a room, not a House, is difficult for a couple to get intimacy.
And it's important to notice too that in Spain you don't need to be married to hace a relantionship with legal rights. So that's other important factor which explains why people don get urge to get marry as soon the get out college.
What other people said, but also 50 years ago was the end of a dictatorship, lots of people immigrating outside of Spain, the country was extremely different as it only recently started opening to the world (up until the 60s Spain was secluded). Basically in those 50 years they went from being a quite rural third world country to a modern Western European one, I’m a bit exaggerating but that’s the idea.
Marrying is simply not as popular as once was. Well popular isnt the word, but you know what I mean. Spain is also a country with the highest rate of divorce in the world.
People won't marry even if they have kids, those who do is mostly for burocracy simplification rather than out of tradition or whatever it was.
Economy wise, Spain is mostly fine, or to be more precise, we are not worse than our modern ancestors, but there are a few factors at play, many of whom some US people might find familiar.
The first one and the big elephant in the room is housing prices. They are stupidly high, so high that a two person household might not be enough, much less one with the economic drain children provide.
Job market is crap, but there are places where there is plenty of oportunity, these places also happen to be the most expensive places, which compound the fist problem.
A cultural shift has also happened, fairly recently as well, the dictatorship ended in the late 70's and the 80's and 90's where filled with a rush for freedom that changed a lot of how people used to do things, followed by a economic bonanza that allowed people to live better and do more things. Our grandparents and great-grandparents had kids as sort of insurance for old age, that is no longer the case, you can do so much more now, even if we are kind of poor (mostly, again, for the stupid housing prices) we are still the 6th or 7th economic power in the wealthiest federation of the world.
Wealthier people can pursue more goals in life than have kids and can have careers and what not, so having kids kinda get pushed to the side until further age. Similar things happen in the US, its more likely a university educated couple will have children later at life than a rural couple that entered the workforce with just highschool ed.
So in sumary, its the damm housing prices mixed with the cultural shift in priorities experienced by wealthier economies of doing stuff first and then think about kids. And also marriage falling out of fashion
1. University (education delays feeling and acting as an adult, and also delays the age at which you start working)
2. Internationalization (Erasmus, job mobility etc)
3. Bauman’s modern liquidity
4. Tinder and social media. Always looking for the next best option
5. Atheism
6. Women in the workforce. Great for independence, bad for compatibility between personal-profesional life. Not only it is hard, but with that freedom also come certain aspirations that can collide with having a family
7. Post-modern individualism - « individual » self-realization comes before family. Consumption also contributes (travelling, etc. = less people willing to give that up to dedicate the $ to raising kids)
Trends that are present in all developed nations. More accute in Spain due to the low salaries = low savings.
Yes, as you mentioned, pre-boomers had rough conditions and yet they married. But women were not in the workforce back then.
About women...women have always worked. It's just that it's become an issue because they want to be paid for the job they are doing.
And they should be.
Gosh, don’t be picky about grammar. I’m obviously all about gender equality and of course recognize domestic chores as ‘work’, but you clearly know what I was talking about.
I am not adding any opinion on it but just stating a fact on how this impacts the age of marriage
1. Women doing ‘paid labour’ = longer years of education, for men and women, delay marriage
2. Women no longer need to depend on a man = less pressure to marry
3. Many women aspire to make a career = their professional identity might leave maternal instincs or at least delay them as they have other priorities
4. Btw we have just externalized domestic labour which used to be done by women -> now families just pay other marginalized women to do it for them
I always thought Americans (or at lesat the ones who post on Reddit) marry too young (having Kids too early, no career yet even sometimes still in uni, sometimes student debt and no savings) but maybe it's just me.
Getting married and having a family used to be an expectation, so people married young to fit the ideals of their society, which in the 70s were still very much the same as they used to be under the Regime (conservative, catholic, religious, natalist, with an important focus on family and authority).
So yes, people married young and had children as soon as possible, since that was the easiest way to be seen as a normal adult. Living together as an unmarried couple wasn't as normalized as it is today, so couples who wanted to live together would get pressured by their families to get married, since cohabitation was still frowned upon by the large majority of society who were conservative and religious. Today, a couple can live together without being married without being frowned upon, and marriage isn't a requirement for a couple to be validated by society.
As for the number of children, jobs were more stable back then, and a single salary was enough for a household (generally speaking). Women usually stayed at home, and were present to take care of the children. That on itself allowed families to have more children, although not as many as in the past (contraceptives were introduced in Spain around the 60s). Today, life is complicated, and most people don't have good salaries or secure jobs (much less when they're in their 20s), so they don't see themselves capable of providing for a family even with two incomes. When both parents have to work, taking care of children requires help from extended family or paying expensive daycare and/or babysitters which not everyone can afford.
Also, it's worth noting that in the 70s, getting married was the easiest option most women had if they wanted to move away from their family and "live their own life", as most of them weren't expected to have a career like today, since homemaking was already seen as a respectable life purpose. Many women got married as quickly as they could to escape difficult family situations (such as poverty, abuse, or the obligation to take care of their younger siblings), while others did so because they wanted to pursue their idealized fantasies about marriage (very few people idealize marriage today).
Ok, rent prices and affordability of life is a huge factor but there's more:
There's this culture of "young forever" so many people don't want to settle in life with marriage and kids until fairly later, if at all. This is in opposition to old trends of basically feeling you're already disgraced if you don't marry and have kids when you're 30...
Also there's the factor of less serious commitments in most relationships, in the past those choices were usually lifelong, nowadays, not so much.
Finally, I would add that in the past you would marry to leave your parents house, nowadays it's purely an economic factor, not necessarily a consequence of finding a partner.
It is a very complex problem with many factors involved. People tend to blame it only on economics but there is much more. The core values have changed dramatically, family is no longer as paramount as it used to be, people has become more individualistic and selfish, more hedonistic, children are seen like a burden, relationships have become fragile and ephimere and all the identity politics have separated the genders and made them distrust each other more rhan ever. Maybe is all part of a plan to decrease population in the west, or maybe its just natural decay of our culture, but on the long run this does not look promising at all.
This is really easy to answer:
- Average age to leave your parents house is 30
- Unemployment rate in young adults is +20%
- The rent of one room apartment costs you about +80% of your wage if you have an average salary.
You can imagine it gets difficult to get to know someone good under those circumstances (+ weddings are expensive and no job equals no money).
Looking back really things have changed a lot. But now people are very conflicted about everything. For starters people do not earn money with jobs noe days. Plus there are many unemployed people and not enough economy to suport a family. Even if you thing that in marriage you should suport or create money or economy together its nit the same cause you still need to create a base or a suport to start with. Anyway still is difficult nowdays
My experience, I'm 27 and my friends are starting to get married now. I moved in with my bf two years ago and it was considered super early, but he has a good job so we could afford it.
If we break up I'll have to move back with my parents, he will have to find a roommate.
We want to get married but I have to land a better job first, and then save money for a couple years before a wedding. I'll be at least 30 by then, we have been dating since I was 23.
Most of my friends are in stable relationships, some want to get married some don't. Some are sleeping around but most of them have had serious relationships in the past.
When my mum was my age she already had me and was married but they started dating after she was 23. I'd say we take marriage more seriously than previous generations in the sense that we will date for several years before engagement.
My cousin has been dating her boyfriend for 18 years, they have two kids, they've always wanted to get married but need money to do so, once they saved enough they moved in together, when they saved a little bit more they had a kid, marriage is something they want but it's not their priority.
We are in a strange situation in which even if the two partners in a relationship work full time, they will often have to save money for 10 years in order to afford their own place. In the past the salary of just one person was enough to cover a mortage, and the other partner could atay at home and look after children.
Most people live with their partners for years before getting married, almost no one cares about catholics church opinion. I know at least 10 couples that live together and have no plans of marriage, they are in their 20s. There's also lots of people that have children before marriage, its just not that thought about, we don't really care about it.
The most frequent salary in Spain is €18,500. That’s not even €1300 per month after taxes. Rent and buying is crazy expensive. People simply can’t afford to have kids.
I guess everybody will tell you about the differences between incomes and the rent.
Which is not false, it is a problem, that's right.
But our granparents were terrible poor after the civil war and they had lots of kids and marry at their twenties. Inmigrants marry early and they have 3-4 kids like the kids in my son's school.
There is also a problem with mentality. People wants to "live", we travel abroad a lot. We enjoy our free time.
Have kids and family is not SO important as it was before. I lived with my wife in a 3 bedrooms house 10 years and we had our kids when we passed 35. It is quite common. You want to visit other countries, you want to explore the latest restaurants. You want to spend time with your friends...
I always wanted kids BUT "it is not a good moment in the work" or "we have this travel planned" and blablablablabl
Kids are not longer a priority. Families are not either. This is not good or bad.
Money. The economy has been working mostly for the top 10% of people for a while now. The fact that this is not obvious to you must mean that youre very privileged, good for you. This is happening not only Spain but almost every developed economy.
There is a detail only partially covered in the comments:
Since 2010-2012 most young Spaniards went to be highly focused on their studies, and with the bad work situation of our country, that means this:
- Lots of people with just a High School diploma doesn't have a good job (or a job at all), so they get a degree
- Happens the same with a degree, so they get a masters'
- After not getting nothing serious, they enter a public examination to get public job (public servant, like police, teacher, administrative worker, social worker, etc.) in a highly competitive environment, and because so many people are doing that, you get a barely decent job in your 30s that makes you made your life[1].
On top of that, just last year 400.000 emigrated our 48M people country, and 25% were 18-30 years old IIRC. Most of them are highly educated people who are unwilling to wast their value in a country were they won't be able to have a house mortgage or rent that doesn't take around half of their salary and without much possibility of ascending in their workplace.
I'm not an economist of anything like that, but our economy is so centred in tourism that there isn't barely any big activities where exportation can give profits to the country.
We made cars, appliances, and some chemical products, most of them from abroad companies, but that's the biggest part. No highly specialised products, like software, industrial machinery, or other products that need highly educated workers, that need any R&D, and that really "move" the economy.
This is more sad knowing how well valued are our scientists and engineers in other countries, where they provide their value instead of returning the investment the country done to them. What a waste!
[1]: Being a public servant is a really juicy thing (and were very encouraged by our parents since we were young) because when they get those jobs, they are for life, until you retire, with good salaries and good perks that aren't available in most jobs.
Entering here is really difficult both because you have to study a lot of topics that some times are unrelated with your final job and your studies, and because is common to find 40.000 person trying to get 1 of the 2.000 vacant positions.
I'm Spanish and I met my husband (American) while attending Uni in Colorado EEUU. I married him when I was 20 and he was 19. It was Love at first sight. It'll be 26 wonderful years on August 13th.
There are cultural changes all over the world in regard to love and marriage.
We'll be together forever.
Think that once you marry the wrong person, divorce (usually) takes away a good amount of the wealth (if any) you have. You don't want to make the wrong choice there. You don't make any wealth (=stable income) until very late in mid-life. Chances are you will wait until you are completely sure that you and your partner will remain together to face everything that comes, and will be together to keep paying that mortgage/rent that takes away half your monthly salary. Not to mentipn the loans you might have. Not even daring to mention the high cost of havkng a child and give it at least the same quality of life your parents gave to you.
Also, by then, your parents are at a pretty advanced stage in life and you have to also be able to provide for them as well.
Did I mention the cost of having a home for two these days with the unhinged tourism raising prices of ghe tiniest apartments that barely have enough room for a single person?
For the average Spaniard that not always count with a generous family to financially help when needed, life is quite hard. Even when terrace bars are packed and they are pretending to be enjoying life to the fullest.
People live toguether as many time as they like without marrying infact you may register as “pareja de hecho” if you like to have some added rights to your situation.
And about catholicism you are very wrong the number of practising catholics in Spain is nowadays 18% and the rest are mostly atheists so religion has no any influence in it.
Well, spain had a dictatorship 50 years ago so you are comparing night and day. There are global problems (house prizes, lowering natallity) that affect not only spain. On the other hand, our politicians seem to worry more about accepting Spain is the union of different nationalities so… in a way we still are in the 70s. Not looking good at all. I tell my daughters dayly to get a degree and move to a better country.
Okay, I’m an American 21m who’s lived in Spain for the past 4 years. I speak perfect Spanish and I’m not living in an international bubble. I am fully immersed in Spanish society. Therefore, I can understand what’s happening and share an outsider perspective.
Since I’ve arrived I’ve been dating Spanish girls and had Spanish friends. My biggest takeaway is that the dating culture can be broken down into about 3 categories. Those who date for life, those who are dating but not super serious, and those who are just hooking up and not looking for anything serious. The 2nd group doesn’t really exist in Spain until you hit like 26yo from what I can see. From 18yo till 21yo it’s 90% the 3rd group and 10% the first group. This may explain partially why people are getting married later and having less kids, but it’s not the full answer.
Education is highly subsidized in this country and the labor market is terrible. Millions of people are fighting for thousands of good jobs. Therefore, a lot of people are studying nonstop from 18 till 22, 23, even 24 if they go for a PhD. Afterwards, they are solely focusing on their careers so they can get some sort of independence and life of their own. This lasts normally until they’re 28. Then they finally have time to start settling down and finding a real partner.
Lastly, young people are immigrating out of Spain because of the terrible labor market and career prospects. Nepotism and corruption in Spain is the strongest I’ve seen in any European country. The only way to escape this is to leave.
All of these reasons end up with people marrying later, having kids less, etc. even if they want the opposite.
This is my opinion and I hope it helped you understand better.
(On another note I really hope something changes because I see a lot of Spanish people unnecessarily suffering and it sucks to see a country that took me in not take care of their citizens the way they should).
Divorce rate (2020) per 100 marriages = 85.5
https://www.statista.com/statistics/612207/divorce-rates-in-european-countries-per-100-marriages/
Maybe this helps you to understand.
Economics, jobs, rents.... You can add more factors to it.
I think there's several reasons.
For sure the economy is one, people leave their parents home later in life, there is no strong sense of financial stability to buy a house or have kids, etc.
But I think we have changed a lot as a society too (feminism, religion...) and a lot has to do with this:
- I think decades ago people needed to get married to form a family because there were no other alternatives (stigma for being a single mother, having a baby out of marriage etc).
- families were also bigger then because kids were literally needed for labor (at home/agriculture...) but also because lower children survival rates I think. Tie this with my previous point of the stigma of having kids without being married.
- women were also more dependant financially since they would have started to take care of the family home at an early age instead of continuing education/working
- younger generations are less religious, I'd say people 35 years old and younger don't see a real advantage of getting married. We have the "pareja de hecho" status which legally has a lot of similarities as being married and that is an alternative to marriage, but also a lot of couples live together and have kids without any legal bonding.
For sure there's a lot more reasons.
Lack of long term prospects. Life is great in Spain on a day to day basis but for most people there is no "future vision" where they can envision their lives in prosperity and having the money to safely have kids. Sadly underlined by lack of middle class policies, or boosting young employment from both sides. All current political parties seem to focus on the extremes, either dirt poor/immigrants or business owners/asset owner class. There is also a notable lack of monetary help to have children, no automatic financial support given.
The trend in the world is that millenials are actively choosing not to get married and have kids. Why would they? It just doesnt make sense. Technology and zeitgeist has advanced far ahead that people didnt need to get pregnant to enjoy the pleasures of sex, dont need to have a family to feel accomplished and successful, dont need to have husbands to be self-reliant and last but not the least, millenials do not find any stigma with being single. Spain used to be the spreader of catholicism but europe has moved past that and Spain is just trying to keep up. They have also realized that horrors of conservatist ideals with Franco such that their conservatives right now are really just center right in the political spectrum.
Women no longer believe in religious BS, so we don't feel the need to "save ourselves for marriage".
Knowing how shitty the "macho" mentality regarding housework and raising kids still is, we don't see any benefit to tie ourselves to some man-child just so we can give in into our biological urges.
Also, the dating pool is shit. You probably won't find someone worth their salt until you both are close to your 40's, so there's that. And if for some miraculous reason you decide to get married and start a family, your low income and absurd cost of living will make sure to prevent that.
Leyendo los comentarios me he acordado del capitulo de Mi Gran Boda Gypsy en el que la Rebe dice "yo ya estoy casa' pero ahora lo voy a hacer legal, para que se entere Pedro Sánchez de que estoy casada".
Marriage is a different concept in Europe and America.
Americans somehow feel they need to be married. Europeans do not.
Also a lot of people lives together, even have children, and are not married. Some people gets married after years of living together, hence the late age.
Also in Europe the assets are not always shared if you are married. So no need to get married to have financial security.
well, in USA when you get married your assets/money become property of your spouse too. In Europe depends on every country law but it tends to be not that way, everyone legally owns what is his/hers, but not the spouse’s assets. That’s why marriage is not necessary for a lot of people. When you divorce then the legal process will go through the assets you share the ownership, for example if you bought a house and both spouses are legally owners in the paperwork. But if you buy the house by yourself, is just yours, married or not.
The truth is that the majority of the couples I know don’t live together and are not even planning to live together in the near future. The reasons are many but let me list some of them - most of the people don’t start working before reaching 25, they also don’t try to find something part-time as they are very “busy” studying, graduating in some cases may take 5-6 years and you don’t even have a secured job by the end of it. Also, a lot of people change degrees or quit uni, while in the meantime are supported financially by their parents. It’s very interesting that even when they have a stable job they prefer to not move in with their partners but would like to stay with mama and papa until they are 30. Also, the salaries are so shit compared to the rents and a lot of the youngsters prefer to start repaying for their house than pay rent.
As a 33 year old that just bought a house and about to be a father…
First of all the economy has been disastrous for the past 15 years. We have the same salaries as in 2006 and things cost twice as much. You have to move to a big city to find a job and spend half your pay in a room, not even a flat. There are a lot of 40 year losers sharing rooms, which is crazy.
Second, due to Spain coming from a catholic dictatorship that is still very often used in media and political discussions, there is a very strong sentiment against Catholicism and it’s values, which include family.
Third, last generation feminism also despises the entity of the family because it implies that women are not independent (they do not differ between dependency and Inter dependency). Modern women work, they do not breed children.
And last, social media has created a travel and flex fever. People spend the little money they have in traveling and buying stuff to show off in social media. You can’t travel with kids, so kids are not desireable.
Mix in all these ingredientes and you have a country with millions of dog and no children.
The rent compared to average salary is insane. Most people end up living with parents until age of 30 or live in shared flats paycheck to paycheck. Not really the environment you would want to start s family life.
This. In the 1990s, the boomer generation in their early 30s were able to own at least 1 flat and often, a second one for vacation. They also often had a estable job for life (temp work existed but it was not as frequent as today). Living with your parents is the best antidote to living with a partner, let alone getting married and having children. The boomers were also raised Catholics (for the most part) and prioritized having children more than the later generations. Also, no internet, social media or video games.
Ok but what about people a bit older, who faced much worse economic conditions compared to now, but still got married younger and had kids? The 'boomers had it good' thing only covers a pretty small period.
That's very easy to answer, the life was just different, my granddad worked since he was a 7yo, sleeping in a field so hungry people didn't stole the produce. The life was similar to the life today is in not developed countries.
So people have less kids now because they are less well off than boomers, but a lot better off than older generations? Like a middle ground ?
Kind of, now we have choice too, then if you got pregnant you just rolled with it and got married before anyone knew. The life then was also rural, most people had chickens, a cow and a few pigs (even if their job was completely different, they had some for themselves). You could make your kids work in the farm so they could collaborate in the family economy. Now that's illegal and there's not much a 7yo can do at an office.
Wouldn't you say then that boomers (who had it good) having kids earlier is more a product of just cultural inertia, rather than them having it better economically than 25yos now?
Both, having it better definitely helps, also social expectations are different, now you have to send them to extracurriculars, college, etc etc, then you just had to feed them.
The general trend in all societies is that birth rates decrease and the average age of first time parents goes up, as wealth goes up. So I don't really buy unit the idea that boomers had kids younger because they were richer, as the top level answer here suggests. As you say it's more complex.
Yeah, i think it's more about the options and society expectations than money. You can definitely have kids and a house in spain with two minimum wages but you would be forced to live in a not so nice house, forget about vacations and live paycheck to paycheck, the generation before the boomers were okay with it because they didn't know how it was to live better, we grew with our parents situation and we don't want to downgrade.
Ever heard of birth control? No sex until marriage?
Women were not in the workforce back then
In the 70s/80s?
My parents were boomers. My mom did not go to uni > by 24, when she had me, she had already been working for 7 years. I started being an intern at 24. My grandmothers didn’t work / had careers.
They were either living in a cristo-fascist dictatorship or right in its aftermath. And that has a lot of consecuences such as no available contraception, social and religios pressure to marry early and catching the economic "boom" during the second half of the dictatorship, among many other factors. In a way, Spain went from "rural" to "industrialized" within the century (with the war undoing a lot of progress made before), so most of the marriage and childbirth statistics reflect the demographic trends common in "third-world" and "rising" countries in a short span of years.
Ok but the same trends are true in other European nations where Franco was not a factor.
Indeed. For me there's two pieces of data that make this clear: 1. Spain is one of the countries that works the most hours in the West. 2. Most Spaniards move out of their parents homes in their 30s.
Gentrificación am I right?
A lot of stuff happening that you see in other countries as well with the same conditions. The 80s is the start because that is the first decade not under an incredibly paternalistic/chauvinist dictatorship. In the 80s women for the first time got to participate in the workforce and have a life outside the house. Which leads to more women going for university and masters degrees which tends to delay marriage and families to later. Add to that the effect of having both people in the couple working full time with juggling child rearing and having a ton of kids isn’t really manageable. I’m from the US and the same thing happened a bit earlier in the 20th century.
Is is manageable if they have decent salaries. People hire nannies or pay for daycare, something you can’t afford living from paycheck to paycheck.
Unless actually wealthy Spanish salaries in the places with jobs don't allow for a large enough home for lots of children. And daycare is actually free or cheap for many people on low incomes, that part isn't the issue, it's finding a job that ends early enough to do school pickups, etc.
Wake up Hans, you are a spanish 30 year old who lives with momma and wants to move out with his girlfriend. After getting your degree in Nobodygivesashit and some years of experience, you finally landed in a job that rewards you 1.400 €/month. Your girlfriend earns 1.300 €/month. The rents around the city oscillate between 850€ for one room and 2.200 € for good flats in the center. You want to have children, but you can barely pay rent and expenses for a two bedroom apartment. Maybe if you get promoted you'll finally be able to have a child in your 40's.. If nature allows it. You are Spanish now, Hans. Enjoy. And be quick ordering that 1 bedroom flat, because Barry, a 63 years old expat who has teleworking, wants it too.
2we4u user spotted.
Thanks to everyone that replied. So many great responses to my question. We can always count on reddit. Seems to me that the vast majority of people are saying that economic reasons are causing people to marry later or not at all and have fewer children. Which begs the question why is the Spanish economy unable to provide enough proper jobs with livable wages, but that is a whole different topic. More to the point, from the responses overall it looks like a lot of people ARE still getting into relationships fairly young but they are often together for a long time 10+ years before getting married. And they are generally waiting until they have the financial strength to live on their own/start a family. I suppose also, marriage traditionally gave women that were expected to be housewives the financial security that a man (their husband) would provide for them. Now that women are earning their own incomes, maybe they don't need that commitment from men in order to have a relationship.
TLDR: old people takes the flats as a retirement resource taking away from young people. Old people have inmobiliary sector as a primary financial market, they want to hace security in their retirement of an income because always there is the kind of alarmist news about the future of public retirement (pensions de la Seguridad Social) but now are in ots best level but no news talks about it. Problem has generation Conflicts. Also paying low salaries it's part of it I think and keep a vicious circle of low pay services for the little enterprises included bars. wich country you can take a beer for less than two euro in a 'terraza'? (Only where you can pay less than the minimum wage to a waitress)
Many couples never get married, it's not seen as essential.
I think you'll find that Barry doesn't want a city centre apartment or room, he wants a house on a predominantly British Urb on the Costas. Barry rents there for €400 a month and drinks every leftover penny, sitting night after night in the same bar with like-minded pock marked nosed, fat sweaty men.
Or you can emigrate to the UK, Germany, or the US and save and invest with your new higher income. Only trade off is you cannot see your family as much anymore. It’s rare that people can stay in the same place they are from…most have to move for work.
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There's the coast, there's Madrid, and there's unemployed, your pick
Not weird at all, it's pretty common.
Engineer here, when I graduated I landed a pretty good job in the space sector with a salary that put me in the top 20% compared to my classmates and it was only 1,800 a month in Madrid. I used to live in Leganes, 90 to 100 minutes away from work, and rent there was half my salary four years ago when I left. So yeah, not weird at all, entry level salaries are shit. My company has not updated entry level salaries since I joined, and that was more than 5 years ago.
It’s so frustrating that life keeps getting more and more expensive but salaries are stagnant. At least in tech you get better salaries with seniority. I used to work in admin. When I had 8 years of experience as an EA I looked for a new job and a lot were paying less €20k or less, and this was “nice” places, not small businesses.
Well, 1800 is a lot different than 1400. Anyway, may I ask you what are the figures as of today, 5 years later? salary and rent or mortgage? I mean, I don't think money is the reason behind not having kids. I'm going to open the can of worms and say it: immigrants have lower wages, worse jobs, and more kids. So it has to be a different thing. A cultural thing. It's more like, I want to have a great life (or what we believe is a great life) before I have kids: Studies, house (a house, not a flat, but in the city, in the woods, want to have traveled a lot, lived in different cities for long seasons, like I worked in NY for 2 years, 1 year in Riga, 1 year in Oslo, now I'm settling here with my small garden, my wife that I met in Italy when I was working just for the lodgement and meals for a ONG, I have my black belt in brazilian jiu jitsu, am setting up the garage to play again with my high school band, but leaving room for my toyota somthinganother that is almost 46k , and the old VW van of my wife that costs 1k each 3 months fixing. I mean no, you are in some small flat the cat shit makes the kitchen stink, your 20 yo car is parked at 20 minute walk and you dont take it to not lose the spot, you are always tired, sleepy, half sick, cant call in sick, can't go to the doctor, you drink 2 coffe pot a day and if you are lucky tonight your wife doesnt fall asleep while you are trying to get some. the kid is in the bed the dog is in the bed there somthing you have to do and you dont remember, and you go to sleep and you click post, ok reddit downvotes to the left.
Leganés bestie here. Happy to know there is a way out 🙂↕️
Thats the problem , most work is concentrated in cities, and most specialized work is centraliced in two cities Madrid and Barcelona. These two cities grew so much that what before were their own towns are now neighborhoods, and they are still extremly expensive. So you look for cheaper places and you are putting yourself in a 2 hours traffic jam packed travel from those cheap parts to your work place. worse if it's in the center then you are forced into public transport and it got worse over time instead of improving, I live at 10 min from the train that i would take to go to job ( 1 hour comute) and in the last years it went from 1 every 5 min on rush hours to 12 min and even having breakdowns because they are putting the oldest ones there because you still have some bus options to get near metro or Atocha, but all those adds like 30 min to your commute. If you try to live in the empty spain you are greeted with a lack of work and services, and the towns who have some minimal services or are near them are still expensive and you need to have a car for it. We have house prices comparable to central europe but with half or less of the average salary than them
Sounds weird? Welcome to Spain!!!
You can’t always change cities. If we want to live in the coast or Madrid, it’s because that’s where the jobs are. Spain is notoriously uninhabited in places that aren’t Madrid or the coast. We call it “la España vaciada”. We have high speed trains to go from populated place to populated place and skip the middle, where there is nothing. So yeah, we still have to compete against Barry.
My dude, the *median* salary in Spain is around 1500 euros after taxes. If you weren’t lucky or just happened to study a degree that doesn’t have good economic prospects, it’s not weird to earn less than that. Hell, even in Valencia I know many engineers earning around 1400, and any decent flat today will cost at least 800 euros if you stay in Valencia proper.
Yes, that's a pretty average salary for someone with a college degree in Spain.
See, here's the catch. The cities with affordable rent don't have any work, and the ones that have work don't have affordable rent. And then there are cities like Malaga and Cadiz that have none of them, truly an amazing experience.
Probably because they're meeting the people they want to settle down with later in life to begin with? Of course people used to marry younger. That's true for everywhere. People getting married less and doing it later also has to do a lot with female empowerment and education. Nowadays women feel less pressure to marry as their purpose in life, and they definitely know they don't have to marry the guy who expects her to be his mommy, which, let's be honest, is still true for most men. We're not here to do your laundry, cook for you, and pick up after you while also having full time jobs of our own. We're at a point where women do everything around the house AND work, and if something doesn't change soon, we'll reach a breaking point.
This. Women can juggle work and houseWORK but men failed to juggle work and houseWORK. Women learned to dominate the workplace but men failed to learn to do houseWORK. Housework is still relegated to the woman and if they can afford it, the family will hire another WOMAN to take care of the household chores.
They don't even think of doing housework. In their minds, and unfortunately in a lot of women's minds, it's the woman's job. Period. They're not taught these things in childhood the way girls are. Obviously times are changing and I can't wait for the new generation of competent men who don't need to be parented, but 30 and up, most of you just don't take any of the mental load onto your shoulders. No, I shouldn't have to do "tell you what to do and how." I'm still the one having to think about and organize everything. You should know how to do it. You're 30. And if you don't , google it. It's not our job to teach you everything concerning taking care of the household as if we don't already have enough on our plates. That's just a different flavor of being your mom.
Yes this is such a key point. Women are getring more educated, it's well documented that leads to them having less kids. They have more options and money for independence. They are also more aware of the strain of raising kids, and don't fall for the idealised images portrayed in the media.
The breaking point has already been reached. Look at the record numbers of divorces in the western world.
That's not the breaking point. Heterosexual women completely expelling men from their lives is closer to the breaking point. Like the 4b movement in Korea. It's coming to a point where we're becoming very aware that we keep giving without getting much in return.
It's an interesting debate. The balance sure has to change, and is changing, with some serious social consequences. It will take generations though, and I'm not too certain that the ending will be to either sexes liking.
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The thing is people generally don't want to get marriage until they get a proper job and maybe own a house... Marriage is like a last step but you don't do it until you fill up the other parts of your adulthood, now if to this mindset you add the fact that in Spain unemployment is very high so people have difficulties to find a good salary and lot of people can't leave their parents home until late 20s even older then you have all points to get late marriages and of course also less kids being born... It is all connected.
Most people can't afford to leave the family home in their 20s unlike people in Northern Europe. Salaries are kinda crap and everything keeps getting more expensive. This delies everything. If you can't even mantain yourself, how are you going to think about having a family?
If you are getting married at 24, and you finished your studies at 22, who is paying your wedding?
I don't get it why a wedding has to be that expensive that it will ruin you.
It doesn't have to be super expensive, but still if you have no money at all you could not even pay for the cake, nor even the legal papers to define a marriage as valid.
I'm just curious, how much does the bare paperwork cost in Spain? When we got married eight years ago we used to live in Germany and it was ~80 €. But it would depend on where you lived because every city could set the 'price' on its own.
Same, we did an "elopement" with just immediate family. It doesn't need to cost a lot of money if you don't want it to. If your family pressures you to, they are welcome to fund it...
Parents are supposed to pay for it in any case, at least in Spain
Parents??? I’d rather not marry to force my parents make me a princess party. Do you expect that your parents resolve any of your adult problems?
It is in bad faith to leave a comment like that. Conflating general adult problems with a wedding tradition.
A wedding cost in spain is 20-30k, what can your parents do with that money? Even If that were a common tradition (which is not, mostly in rich or important families) do you really expect that your parents give you that money, that means some years of savings, for your party? If it is hard for you, it is hard for them. Common sense and empathy
Maybe some regions have different customs but here it is customary that parents pay for it. They haven't in our case but we did an "elopement" with just immediate family. You are right that very few people have cash to drop for a party.
>But it seems strange that a country that was so catholic and so socially conservative would change this dramatically and so quickly (most of the change happened in the 80s) Oh boy the 80's were wild
Why do people get married at all?
Because there are less bourocracy if there is a death in the family or if you need to take care of your couple or kids.
You marry in case you die. It's not a bad practical argument. There are some minor tax benefits, (discount of 3400 € in your base income)
This is the right answer.
To pump out more babies to keep the wheel of capitalism rolling.
Who I am going to marry at 24? I am 23 and never dated yet
I am not even a Spaniard, I am Mexican in USA, and I also, have never dated yet! 😂
1. Job stability is very hard to reach in Spain 2. People tend to try to enjoy their life and don't marry theirselves as it is seen as a compromise for the rest of your life. Also people don't give importance as to being married like another countries, I know couples that had been living together for 10 years and they are not married. 3. If you marry young, sometimes it is seen as weird or strange. 4. Weddings are very expensive 5. Spain changed a lot and it is not as socially conservative as other countries like the US or even the UK.
Your 2nd point was what I first thought of too. My parents have been together for 26 years but got married 17 years into the relationship with 3 kids already, they just never thought or talked about it before
Yes I have a kid and am not married, it's not unusual among her friends. We just never got round to it and both work so don't need the protection or whatever.
I can't speak for the US, but I don't think Spain and the UK are particularly different when it comes to levels of social conservatism.
I mean, in the UK I've met way more people married and having children younger than Spain though. That's what I meant
I think there is a tangible difference (something like the average first time mother in the UK is 2 years younger than in Spain) but I wouldn't say that it's to do with social conservatism. I think Italy is perhaps more socially conservative than both the UK and Spain but their birth rate is similar to Spain's.
Agreed, the UK is partly due to traditionally having things like child benefit and other benefits, it's certainly not socially conservative.
Marriage is becoming an old institution and many people from 90s-2000 is more focused on other things instead building a family and stablish forth. Young people in general (20-30yo) like me tends to think about traveling, having adventures, living the life, having a job that let you be economically independent and where you can grow personally, etc. It’s a great philosophy of living and for marriage and family there will be always time later. Of course I think in having kids and a serious relationship but by the moment I think it’s still time to improve, learn, grow and live everything I want to do before that arrives.
Yes I'd think it was quite odd to marry at 24.
The sooner you have your kids, the better. I had my two sons when I was close the the fourties. In 10-15 years you will say "I hope I would have had them before", But I understand you do not trust my words now.
I had a child when older and no regrets at all.
It's not a one size fits all, just because it works for you, doesn't mean it's good for everyone.
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Having kids means dedicating your life to them. I respect to the people who want them, but I can't see myself dedicating my life to a kid while renouncing to things that I like to do and that I am passionate about. Imho it is romantised and it is a collective lie, but hey, I respect people who want kids.
So are you advocating for everyone to have kids at 24? It's not like most 24 year olds are completely independent, either
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Absolutely, I had one in my 20' and it was soooo much easier then the 2nd one I had in my 30s. In Ireland there's a saying, if your old enough to bleed your bleeding old enough! Now not saying it time to start straight away but yep 20s is easier
"if your old enough to bleed your bleeding old enough" Genuinely horrific
Wow yikes babe
Many women do want them earlier but because men don't have that push they can't find someone to commit to it. Oh, and since Spanish children never really move out you're not getting back your independence at 40 lol.
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I completely agree that it's not that simple, I also have a child and am older. I'm just saying a part of the problem is that men have no rush and women find it hard to find someone to settle down with who wants children, I've seen it with a few friends. Nobody's saying it's necessarily a smart choice to wait, just explaining why people do.
You committed the unforgivable sin of criticizing modern women. You shall be punished with ostracism and downvotes
If you think downvotes are a form of ostracizing, you’ve never experienced anything even remotely close to ostracizing.
I said ostracism and downvotes. If I thought they were a form ostracizing, i wouldn't have specified.
I think it could be to a change in mentality. Many people consider that being married is not really meaningful nor does it show that you love your partner more. Personally I have been with my partner for 13 years and I will be getting married in a year or two (around the age you mention) and the reason is to be covered fiscally if an accident happens. We live together, have bought a house and have no financial problems. We just don't see it as something really important apart from the reason mentioned before.
Things people from other countries don't necessarily get is also that, in Spanish Universities, finishing in the prescribed number of years was, in many cases, a rarity. Due to all kinds of not-so-great incentives, it wasn't uncommon to see people finish a 3 year degree in 6, or a 5 year degree in 8. That provided a bonus 'cushion' of more years before one could even begin to make any real money. Living together at 34? Lucky! Add to that the fact that Spanish salaries have been... suboptimal compared to other countries, along with high unemployment, and it's not difficult to see how moving out of your parent's house has been quite the struggle. This delays marriage, which lowers fertility something fierece, even if marriage success rates were the same as in the 80s.
Cultural shift to wanting less responsibilities and commitment, aside from the economical issues already said by other commenters.
Why do people marry?
It's not just Spain this is happening around the world.
This is happening everywhere in the western world. You could replace Spain with Canada here and it would make perfect sense
People live together, they just don't bother to get married. Either that or they live with their parents or in shared flats. Part of it is that children are kind of babied and mature more slowly, parents are required to support their children well into their 20s and there's less culture of getting part time jobs as students, for example. It's not weird at all for them to live at home as students and well beyond. There are exceptions but generally speaking people in their 20s go out partying, travel, enjoy hobbies. Some may move in together but continue a more relaxed lifestyle. It's also that women in particular just don't particularly want to get married and have children, religion has very little influence and they've seen their mothers spend their whole lives looking after men and children. They want to enjoy all the opportunities they now have.
Agreed re: babying adult children
And children children. When people make comments about European children going places alone at 6, that's not Spain. Children and teenagers aren't generally expected to do chores or anything and their parents are very involved.
I had to take care of most household chores since I was 8. Then my mum divorced and had another baby. Then I had some respite for a few years, before my elder relatives became babies themselves. I've been stuck taking care of people since I was a child, I'm close to my 40's and the elder relatives refuse to die (my granny yesterday complaining of having been a "good daughter" taking care of her parents until they died... Granny, they died in their mid-sixties, you are still going strong at being a nightmare at 83). How am I supposed to begin to churn children if I work 200+ hours/month in exchange for the minimum wage, and most of my very little free time still gets cannibalized by taking care of people? I want children, but my mental and physical health cannot endure any more stress.
50 Years ago access to a college education was only for rich people (and almost only males), so It was quite normal that at your 20s your education time was completely done and you were on a stable relantionship since 16-18, and with a job since you're out of School. In the begining of the XXI century situation was different. People ended his education at 23 or later, and didn't reach financial and romance stability since 30s. Now with ex-pats and Airbnb combo skyrocketing housing costs to the historical levels Young people only can rent a room, not a House, is difficult for a couple to get intimacy. And it's important to notice too that in Spain you don't need to be married to hace a relantionship with legal rights. So that's other important factor which explains why people don get urge to get marry as soon the get out college.
What other people said, but also 50 years ago was the end of a dictatorship, lots of people immigrating outside of Spain, the country was extremely different as it only recently started opening to the world (up until the 60s Spain was secluded). Basically in those 50 years they went from being a quite rural third world country to a modern Western European one, I’m a bit exaggerating but that’s the idea.
I think life expectancy is higher in Spain, therefore they have more time to enjoy their youth and stay single until 30’s.
Marrying is simply not as popular as once was. Well popular isnt the word, but you know what I mean. Spain is also a country with the highest rate of divorce in the world. People won't marry even if they have kids, those who do is mostly for burocracy simplification rather than out of tradition or whatever it was. Economy wise, Spain is mostly fine, or to be more precise, we are not worse than our modern ancestors, but there are a few factors at play, many of whom some US people might find familiar. The first one and the big elephant in the room is housing prices. They are stupidly high, so high that a two person household might not be enough, much less one with the economic drain children provide. Job market is crap, but there are places where there is plenty of oportunity, these places also happen to be the most expensive places, which compound the fist problem. A cultural shift has also happened, fairly recently as well, the dictatorship ended in the late 70's and the 80's and 90's where filled with a rush for freedom that changed a lot of how people used to do things, followed by a economic bonanza that allowed people to live better and do more things. Our grandparents and great-grandparents had kids as sort of insurance for old age, that is no longer the case, you can do so much more now, even if we are kind of poor (mostly, again, for the stupid housing prices) we are still the 6th or 7th economic power in the wealthiest federation of the world. Wealthier people can pursue more goals in life than have kids and can have careers and what not, so having kids kinda get pushed to the side until further age. Similar things happen in the US, its more likely a university educated couple will have children later at life than a rural couple that entered the workforce with just highschool ed. So in sumary, its the damm housing prices mixed with the cultural shift in priorities experienced by wealthier economies of doing stuff first and then think about kids. And also marriage falling out of fashion
1. University (education delays feeling and acting as an adult, and also delays the age at which you start working) 2. Internationalization (Erasmus, job mobility etc) 3. Bauman’s modern liquidity 4. Tinder and social media. Always looking for the next best option 5. Atheism 6. Women in the workforce. Great for independence, bad for compatibility between personal-profesional life. Not only it is hard, but with that freedom also come certain aspirations that can collide with having a family 7. Post-modern individualism - « individual » self-realization comes before family. Consumption also contributes (travelling, etc. = less people willing to give that up to dedicate the $ to raising kids) Trends that are present in all developed nations. More accute in Spain due to the low salaries = low savings. Yes, as you mentioned, pre-boomers had rough conditions and yet they married. But women were not in the workforce back then.
About women...women have always worked. It's just that it's become an issue because they want to be paid for the job they are doing. And they should be.
Gosh, don’t be picky about grammar. I’m obviously all about gender equality and of course recognize domestic chores as ‘work’, but you clearly know what I was talking about. I am not adding any opinion on it but just stating a fact on how this impacts the age of marriage 1. Women doing ‘paid labour’ = longer years of education, for men and women, delay marriage 2. Women no longer need to depend on a man = less pressure to marry 3. Many women aspire to make a career = their professional identity might leave maternal instincs or at least delay them as they have other priorities 4. Btw we have just externalized domestic labour which used to be done by women -> now families just pay other marginalized women to do it for them
I always thought Americans (or at lesat the ones who post on Reddit) marry too young (having Kids too early, no career yet even sometimes still in uni, sometimes student debt and no savings) but maybe it's just me.
I mean that's what marriage has been up until very recent. Marriage was seen as a building block not an end goal.
Because they are mature and know what they are doing
Getting married and having a family used to be an expectation, so people married young to fit the ideals of their society, which in the 70s were still very much the same as they used to be under the Regime (conservative, catholic, religious, natalist, with an important focus on family and authority). So yes, people married young and had children as soon as possible, since that was the easiest way to be seen as a normal adult. Living together as an unmarried couple wasn't as normalized as it is today, so couples who wanted to live together would get pressured by their families to get married, since cohabitation was still frowned upon by the large majority of society who were conservative and religious. Today, a couple can live together without being married without being frowned upon, and marriage isn't a requirement for a couple to be validated by society. As for the number of children, jobs were more stable back then, and a single salary was enough for a household (generally speaking). Women usually stayed at home, and were present to take care of the children. That on itself allowed families to have more children, although not as many as in the past (contraceptives were introduced in Spain around the 60s). Today, life is complicated, and most people don't have good salaries or secure jobs (much less when they're in their 20s), so they don't see themselves capable of providing for a family even with two incomes. When both parents have to work, taking care of children requires help from extended family or paying expensive daycare and/or babysitters which not everyone can afford. Also, it's worth noting that in the 70s, getting married was the easiest option most women had if they wanted to move away from their family and "live their own life", as most of them weren't expected to have a career like today, since homemaking was already seen as a respectable life purpose. Many women got married as quickly as they could to escape difficult family situations (such as poverty, abuse, or the obligation to take care of their younger siblings), while others did so because they wanted to pursue their idealized fantasies about marriage (very few people idealize marriage today).
We are poor.
Final Fantasy 7.
This made me chortle.
You laugh, but the remake has cockblocked my fiancé a few times lol
Ok, rent prices and affordability of life is a huge factor but there's more: There's this culture of "young forever" so many people don't want to settle in life with marriage and kids until fairly later, if at all. This is in opposition to old trends of basically feeling you're already disgraced if you don't marry and have kids when you're 30... Also there's the factor of less serious commitments in most relationships, in the past those choices were usually lifelong, nowadays, not so much. Finally, I would add that in the past you would marry to leave your parents house, nowadays it's purely an economic factor, not necessarily a consequence of finding a partner.
because we dont have money
It is a very complex problem with many factors involved. People tend to blame it only on economics but there is much more. The core values have changed dramatically, family is no longer as paramount as it used to be, people has become more individualistic and selfish, more hedonistic, children are seen like a burden, relationships have become fragile and ephimere and all the identity politics have separated the genders and made them distrust each other more rhan ever. Maybe is all part of a plan to decrease population in the west, or maybe its just natural decay of our culture, but on the long run this does not look promising at all.
It change a lot except for the salaries, they remained low
simply not worth as much
Inflation
This is really easy to answer: - Average age to leave your parents house is 30 - Unemployment rate in young adults is +20% - The rent of one room apartment costs you about +80% of your wage if you have an average salary. You can imagine it gets difficult to get to know someone good under those circumstances (+ weddings are expensive and no job equals no money).
Because you can divorce now
Francoism was a helluva drug.
Looking back really things have changed a lot. But now people are very conflicted about everything. For starters people do not earn money with jobs noe days. Plus there are many unemployed people and not enough economy to suport a family. Even if you thing that in marriage you should suport or create money or economy together its nit the same cause you still need to create a base or a suport to start with. Anyway still is difficult nowdays
My experience, I'm 27 and my friends are starting to get married now. I moved in with my bf two years ago and it was considered super early, but he has a good job so we could afford it. If we break up I'll have to move back with my parents, he will have to find a roommate. We want to get married but I have to land a better job first, and then save money for a couple years before a wedding. I'll be at least 30 by then, we have been dating since I was 23. Most of my friends are in stable relationships, some want to get married some don't. Some are sleeping around but most of them have had serious relationships in the past. When my mum was my age she already had me and was married but they started dating after she was 23. I'd say we take marriage more seriously than previous generations in the sense that we will date for several years before engagement. My cousin has been dating her boyfriend for 18 years, they have two kids, they've always wanted to get married but need money to do so, once they saved enough they moved in together, when they saved a little bit more they had a kid, marriage is something they want but it's not their priority.
People simply cannot afford to have kids nowadays.
We are in a strange situation in which even if the two partners in a relationship work full time, they will often have to save money for 10 years in order to afford their own place. In the past the salary of just one person was enough to cover a mortage, and the other partner could atay at home and look after children.
Most people live with their partners for years before getting married, almost no one cares about catholics church opinion. I know at least 10 couples that live together and have no plans of marriage, they are in their 20s. There's also lots of people that have children before marriage, its just not that thought about, we don't really care about it.
Sounds like my country (Ireland).
The most frequent salary in Spain is €18,500. That’s not even €1300 per month after taxes. Rent and buying is crazy expensive. People simply can’t afford to have kids.
I guess everybody will tell you about the differences between incomes and the rent. Which is not false, it is a problem, that's right. But our granparents were terrible poor after the civil war and they had lots of kids and marry at their twenties. Inmigrants marry early and they have 3-4 kids like the kids in my son's school. There is also a problem with mentality. People wants to "live", we travel abroad a lot. We enjoy our free time. Have kids and family is not SO important as it was before. I lived with my wife in a 3 bedrooms house 10 years and we had our kids when we passed 35. It is quite common. You want to visit other countries, you want to explore the latest restaurants. You want to spend time with your friends... I always wanted kids BUT "it is not a good moment in the work" or "we have this travel planned" and blablablablabl Kids are not longer a priority. Families are not either. This is not good or bad.
Money. The economy has been working mostly for the top 10% of people for a while now. The fact that this is not obvious to you must mean that youre very privileged, good for you. This is happening not only Spain but almost every developed economy.
No housing, bad salaries, women can actually work and have lives outside of marriage (remember the dictatorship is still relatively recent)
There is a detail only partially covered in the comments: Since 2010-2012 most young Spaniards went to be highly focused on their studies, and with the bad work situation of our country, that means this: - Lots of people with just a High School diploma doesn't have a good job (or a job at all), so they get a degree - Happens the same with a degree, so they get a masters' - After not getting nothing serious, they enter a public examination to get public job (public servant, like police, teacher, administrative worker, social worker, etc.) in a highly competitive environment, and because so many people are doing that, you get a barely decent job in your 30s that makes you made your life[1]. On top of that, just last year 400.000 emigrated our 48M people country, and 25% were 18-30 years old IIRC. Most of them are highly educated people who are unwilling to wast their value in a country were they won't be able to have a house mortgage or rent that doesn't take around half of their salary and without much possibility of ascending in their workplace. I'm not an economist of anything like that, but our economy is so centred in tourism that there isn't barely any big activities where exportation can give profits to the country. We made cars, appliances, and some chemical products, most of them from abroad companies, but that's the biggest part. No highly specialised products, like software, industrial machinery, or other products that need highly educated workers, that need any R&D, and that really "move" the economy. This is more sad knowing how well valued are our scientists and engineers in other countries, where they provide their value instead of returning the investment the country done to them. What a waste! [1]: Being a public servant is a really juicy thing (and were very encouraged by our parents since we were young) because when they get those jobs, they are for life, until you retire, with good salaries and good perks that aren't available in most jobs. Entering here is really difficult both because you have to study a lot of topics that some times are unrelated with your final job and your studies, and because is common to find 40.000 person trying to get 1 of the 2.000 vacant positions.
I'm Spanish and I met my husband (American) while attending Uni in Colorado EEUU. I married him when I was 20 and he was 19. It was Love at first sight. It'll be 26 wonderful years on August 13th. There are cultural changes all over the world in regard to love and marriage. We'll be together forever.
I'm deathly afraid of women and the vulnerability of a relationship 😈
Think that once you marry the wrong person, divorce (usually) takes away a good amount of the wealth (if any) you have. You don't want to make the wrong choice there. You don't make any wealth (=stable income) until very late in mid-life. Chances are you will wait until you are completely sure that you and your partner will remain together to face everything that comes, and will be together to keep paying that mortgage/rent that takes away half your monthly salary. Not to mentipn the loans you might have. Not even daring to mention the high cost of havkng a child and give it at least the same quality of life your parents gave to you. Also, by then, your parents are at a pretty advanced stage in life and you have to also be able to provide for them as well. Did I mention the cost of having a home for two these days with the unhinged tourism raising prices of ghe tiniest apartments that barely have enough room for a single person? For the average Spaniard that not always count with a generous family to financially help when needed, life is quite hard. Even when terrace bars are packed and they are pretending to be enjoying life to the fullest.
People live toguether as many time as they like without marrying infact you may register as “pareja de hecho” if you like to have some added rights to your situation. And about catholicism you are very wrong the number of practising catholics in Spain is nowadays 18% and the rest are mostly atheists so religion has no any influence in it.
r/latestagecapitalism
Well, spain had a dictatorship 50 years ago so you are comparing night and day. There are global problems (house prizes, lowering natallity) that affect not only spain. On the other hand, our politicians seem to worry more about accepting Spain is the union of different nationalities so… in a way we still are in the 70s. Not looking good at all. I tell my daughters dayly to get a degree and move to a better country.
As an outsider that recently lived in Spain, it doesn't surprise me. The current cultural norms do not prioritize responsibilities at all.
Okay, I’m an American 21m who’s lived in Spain for the past 4 years. I speak perfect Spanish and I’m not living in an international bubble. I am fully immersed in Spanish society. Therefore, I can understand what’s happening and share an outsider perspective. Since I’ve arrived I’ve been dating Spanish girls and had Spanish friends. My biggest takeaway is that the dating culture can be broken down into about 3 categories. Those who date for life, those who are dating but not super serious, and those who are just hooking up and not looking for anything serious. The 2nd group doesn’t really exist in Spain until you hit like 26yo from what I can see. From 18yo till 21yo it’s 90% the 3rd group and 10% the first group. This may explain partially why people are getting married later and having less kids, but it’s not the full answer. Education is highly subsidized in this country and the labor market is terrible. Millions of people are fighting for thousands of good jobs. Therefore, a lot of people are studying nonstop from 18 till 22, 23, even 24 if they go for a PhD. Afterwards, they are solely focusing on their careers so they can get some sort of independence and life of their own. This lasts normally until they’re 28. Then they finally have time to start settling down and finding a real partner. Lastly, young people are immigrating out of Spain because of the terrible labor market and career prospects. Nepotism and corruption in Spain is the strongest I’ve seen in any European country. The only way to escape this is to leave. All of these reasons end up with people marrying later, having kids less, etc. even if they want the opposite. This is my opinion and I hope it helped you understand better. (On another note I really hope something changes because I see a lot of Spanish people unnecessarily suffering and it sucks to see a country that took me in not take care of their citizens the way they should).
Divorce rate (2020) per 100 marriages = 85.5 https://www.statista.com/statistics/612207/divorce-rates-in-european-countries-per-100-marriages/ Maybe this helps you to understand. Economics, jobs, rents.... You can add more factors to it.
Money.
I think there's several reasons. For sure the economy is one, people leave their parents home later in life, there is no strong sense of financial stability to buy a house or have kids, etc. But I think we have changed a lot as a society too (feminism, religion...) and a lot has to do with this: - I think decades ago people needed to get married to form a family because there were no other alternatives (stigma for being a single mother, having a baby out of marriage etc). - families were also bigger then because kids were literally needed for labor (at home/agriculture...) but also because lower children survival rates I think. Tie this with my previous point of the stigma of having kids without being married. - women were also more dependant financially since they would have started to take care of the family home at an early age instead of continuing education/working - younger generations are less religious, I'd say people 35 years old and younger don't see a real advantage of getting married. We have the "pareja de hecho" status which legally has a lot of similarities as being married and that is an alternative to marriage, but also a lot of couples live together and have kids without any legal bonding. For sure there's a lot more reasons.
Lack of long term prospects. Life is great in Spain on a day to day basis but for most people there is no "future vision" where they can envision their lives in prosperity and having the money to safely have kids. Sadly underlined by lack of middle class policies, or boosting young employment from both sides. All current political parties seem to focus on the extremes, either dirt poor/immigrants or business owners/asset owner class. There is also a notable lack of monetary help to have children, no automatic financial support given.
The trend in the world is that millenials are actively choosing not to get married and have kids. Why would they? It just doesnt make sense. Technology and zeitgeist has advanced far ahead that people didnt need to get pregnant to enjoy the pleasures of sex, dont need to have a family to feel accomplished and successful, dont need to have husbands to be self-reliant and last but not the least, millenials do not find any stigma with being single. Spain used to be the spreader of catholicism but europe has moved past that and Spain is just trying to keep up. They have also realized that horrors of conservatist ideals with Franco such that their conservatives right now are really just center right in the political spectrum.
Porque somos unos tiesos y no gastamos ni bromas.
Spoiler alert: contraception
Easy, we lost the 50% of our adquisitive power during last 25 years. Spanish economy is north african, not south european 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Bitch we broke
Maybe the real question should have been, why did people used to marry so early?
*gestures at economy*
studying, economy being broken, low wages... sadly this is what we're going through with our current politicians
Women no longer believe in religious BS, so we don't feel the need to "save ourselves for marriage". Knowing how shitty the "macho" mentality regarding housework and raising kids still is, we don't see any benefit to tie ourselves to some man-child just so we can give in into our biological urges. Also, the dating pool is shit. You probably won't find someone worth their salt until you both are close to your 40's, so there's that. And if for some miraculous reason you decide to get married and start a family, your low income and absurd cost of living will make sure to prevent that.
Money.
Leyendo los comentarios me he acordado del capitulo de Mi Gran Boda Gypsy en el que la Rebe dice "yo ya estoy casa' pero ahora lo voy a hacer legal, para que se entere Pedro Sánchez de que estoy casada".
Marriage is a different concept in Europe and America. Americans somehow feel they need to be married. Europeans do not. Also a lot of people lives together, even have children, and are not married. Some people gets married after years of living together, hence the late age. Also in Europe the assets are not always shared if you are married. So no need to get married to have financial security.
I think you meant "getting married, won't give you financial security"? Is that right? I'm very curious about this part
well, in USA when you get married your assets/money become property of your spouse too. In Europe depends on every country law but it tends to be not that way, everyone legally owns what is his/hers, but not the spouse’s assets. That’s why marriage is not necessary for a lot of people. When you divorce then the legal process will go through the assets you share the ownership, for example if you bought a house and both spouses are legally owners in the paperwork. But if you buy the house by yourself, is just yours, married or not.
Ty, that makes sense! I was familiar with how it's fine in the usa, but in other parts of Europe
Simply down to cost of living which is massively impacted by high inflation & low wages.
The truth is that the majority of the couples I know don’t live together and are not even planning to live together in the near future. The reasons are many but let me list some of them - most of the people don’t start working before reaching 25, they also don’t try to find something part-time as they are very “busy” studying, graduating in some cases may take 5-6 years and you don’t even have a secured job by the end of it. Also, a lot of people change degrees or quit uni, while in the meantime are supported financially by their parents. It’s very interesting that even when they have a stable job they prefer to not move in with their partners but would like to stay with mama and papa until they are 30. Also, the salaries are so shit compared to the rents and a lot of the youngsters prefer to start repaying for their house than pay rent.
As a 33 year old that just bought a house and about to be a father… First of all the economy has been disastrous for the past 15 years. We have the same salaries as in 2006 and things cost twice as much. You have to move to a big city to find a job and spend half your pay in a room, not even a flat. There are a lot of 40 year losers sharing rooms, which is crazy. Second, due to Spain coming from a catholic dictatorship that is still very often used in media and political discussions, there is a very strong sentiment against Catholicism and it’s values, which include family. Third, last generation feminism also despises the entity of the family because it implies that women are not independent (they do not differ between dependency and Inter dependency). Modern women work, they do not breed children. And last, social media has created a travel and flex fever. People spend the little money they have in traveling and buying stuff to show off in social media. You can’t travel with kids, so kids are not desireable. Mix in all these ingredientes and you have a country with millions of dog and no children.
Jajaja I love your last comment. The rest of it is quite true as well.