Spain sounds like a child's paradise. Too bad their birth rates are one of the lowest in Europe (and in the world) at around 1.1 births per woman.
Spain sounds like a child's paradise. Too bad their birth rates are one of the lowest in Europe (and in the world) at around 1.1 births per woman.
Spain is particularly screwed in terms of housing. Access to mortgages is ridiculous, requiring sources of income that can be proved to be stable and ~35% of cost paid upfront, which means that most Spaniards rely on inheritance to reach a point where they can consider children.
Tourism also balloons real estate prices even more than is usual everywhere nowadays.
But the children friendly aspect of society described above is 100% true. It hasn't degraded at all compared to when I was a kid.
I feel like we give too much importance to mortgages/financials, like a learned excuse. Let me tell why.
I’m from the Balkans, and for a time here when money was tight (breakup of Yugoslavia, but maybe even long before), a lot of families lived together in small apartments. For example, two families (grandpa+grandma & their son+wife+kids) in a 50m2 apartment. The big family took the son’s bedroom, grandparents slept in the living room. Sure, it’s not perfect, but people did it. Same story happened in villages, and even it was the standard for some time.
So, whenever I see this argument I say we’re too posh in thinking it. There are different less comfortable ways to start a family and have kids, we just don’t want to do it.
For reference, now in my country everywhere new apartments are built (overbuilding the main city in the process, but different topic), yet prices are still soaring especially relative to the average salary. So same issue of high prices like everywhere.
Yet no one here thinks about the other option. The same argument from the linked article applies - too much comfort.
It's not just a matter of comfort. If you have no housing, you have a monthly recurrent payment to make, where failing once makes you homeless.
Will you be able to afford it next year? Next decade? After retirement?
Removing that permanent threat of ruin is then the priority. It has to be solved before children because once you have them, that's a an extra economic burden and you won't make it out with that extra weight.
The generation that lived through that, the next generation does not wish to live through it, as alternatives are "available" now (at least on paper). Those kids who grew up in 50m2 with no privacy, and at the same time absorbed western TV, where 300m2 detached house is a base in every show - formed their dreams towards that. This is why everyone is delaying family, because the image in their head is that to be truly happy, this is what you need. Very few people, living in those tight conditions grew up to be happy about their childhood.
Is it hard to imagine that younger generation wants to live better lives? They don't want to suffer like their parents did. They are already fed up with all the bullshit that the current generation of politicians leaves to them to figure out?
What is this argument, "too much comfort, too posh"?!
> Access to mortgages is ridiculous, requiring sources of income that can be proved to be stable and ~35% of cost paid upfront
Also out here in rural Galicia, the minimum mortgage size the bank will give is something like 2x the average home price. A friend wanted a ~€30k mortgage to buy a fixer-upper in a small village, and the bank was just like "we don't make loans that small".
As someone living in the center of Barcelona, i might have to come over to Galicia in the future. Hows the public schools in general, similar to here in catalunya i assume. Buying anything around here feels like a half million investment and its not wort it.
The kids get to take a couple of classes in Gallego instead of Catalan, but otherwise I don't see too many differences.
Fair warning, that if you want to live in a city, while Vigo and A Coruna are cheaper than Barcelona or Madrid, I don't think its that stark a contrast - my friend was buying in a rural village, an hour from Vigo.
I think that most of western Europe is fucked in that sense. Previous generations piled up a ton of debt and so now there is no breathing room for subsidize affordable housing, parenting benefits, ... . Add to that that you need 2 salaries to live, that you must study until when you are 25+ to have a degree, that you don't want to have a baby just when you career is starting, that housing is extremely expensive, that you need to save for your pension because clearly the pension system will be drastically neutered in the future due to the above mentioned debt, ... . Basically, there are a bunch of factors that stop many many couples from having children.
I'm Italian so the situations is similar if not worse back at home.
Sounds very similar to what is happening in the US.