The share of young Spaniards able to live independently of their families has fallen to 31 per cent, the sharpest decline registered in any European country over the past decade.
The proportion has dropped from 41 per cent in 2016, according to a report presented on August 11 by Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), one of Spain’s two largest trade union confederations. The European average has held steady at about 50 per cent.
The finding sits alongside a marked improvement in the Spanish labour market. Youth unemployment has fallen from 40 per cent in 2013 to 16 per cent in the first half of this year, while the share of young employees on temporary contracts has dropped from 56 per cent in 2018 to 32 per cent.
CCOO credits minimum wage rises and the labour reform pushed through by the Spanish Government for much of that shift. It also records the highest qualification levels in the country’s history, with 54.2 per cent of young people holding a university degree or a higher vocational award, against 21 per cent less than four decades ago.
None of it has translated into autonomy. The union identifies the cost of housing as the principal obstacle, with its youth secretary Pau García Orrit saying rent can absorb as much as 96 per cent of a young worker’s pay.
Buying has become inaccessible for much of the age group and, with little public housing available, private renting is the only remaining route, the report states. Sharp increases in the price of new tenancy agreements fall hardest on those entering the market for the first time.
The difficulty is no longer confined to those in their twenties. CCOO found that Spaniards aged 30 to 34 are now also unable to leave the family home, making delayed independence a generational rather than an age-specific problem.
Spain is not an isolated case. Research by Eurofound, the EU agency for living and working conditions, found that young people in Bulgaria, Ireland, Poland, Portugal and Spain would need more than 80 per cent of the median wage to afford a standard two-room rental.
The European Commission has appointed its first commissioner with a housing brief, Dan Jørgensen, and published an Affordable Housing Plan. EU leaders are due to return to the subject in Dublin in November, during Ireland’s presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Jørgensen said in February that young people across Europe were “stuck in their parents’ houses”, unable to move, study or work where opportunities existed.
More than 50 academics have warned that the Commission plan risks deepening the crisis it is meant to solve, pointing to vague commitments and the absence of any enforcement mechanism.
