Most unemployed single mothers in Spain have said they rely on help from relatives, the State or charities to cover basic needs, according to a report by the Adecco Foundation.
Some 90 per cent of those surveyed said they struggled to make ends meet, while 76.2 per cent depended on family, institutional or social support.
The findings appear in the 14th edition of the Single Parenthood and Employment report, presented on November 3. It was based on a survey of 210 jobless women raising children without a partner.
The foundation, the Spanish charitable arm of recruitment group Adecco, said 51 per cent of respondents relied mainly on public benefits. Another 19 per cent leaned chiefly on family, 12 per cent on charities and 18 per cent on a mix of the three.
That support was far from secure. Some 62.9 per cent of those receiving it said they had no guarantee it would continue over the following 12 months.
Almost three-quarters, 73.5 per cent, said they could not meet an unexpected bill of €600 without asking for help or borrowing. Children’s education and housing were the hardest costs to cover, cited by 54 per cent and 44 per cent respectively.
Some 73.2 per cent said they had turned down a job offer or dropped out of a recruitment process because it clashed with their family responsibilities.
More than half, 56 per cent, believed that saying they were raising children alone hurt their chances of being hired. Some 48 per cent said they would accept a job without being registered with Social Security just to have work.
Begoña Bravo, the foundation’s director of inclusion, said family, institutional and social help was an important safety net for urgent needs but did not give women the independence and security of a job. She added that work was the way out, provided it was formal, offered sufficient rights and was compatible with caring duties.
Spain has 1,944,800 single-parent households, 81.4 per cent of them headed by women, according to National Statistics Institute (INE) data cited in the report. The foundation put the rate of risk of poverty or social exclusion in these homes at 50.6 per cent, almost double the national average of 25.7 per cent.
In 2025 Spain recorded the highest rate in the European Union of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion in households with dependent children, at 29.9 per cent, according to Eurostat.
The figures come amid a Europe-wide debate over falling birth rates and how governments support families. Spain has one of the lowest fertility rates in the EU, at 1.10 children per woman in 2024, according to Eurostat.
