Need for child care threatens future of Spanish family life

By Jillian Argento

Butcher shop owner Pedro Moral and his wife split their work schedules so at least one of them can be home with their 17-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son throughout the day. (Anne Collins Wilcox)

Spain is the third-lowest country in Europe for number of children per family, with households averaging at 1.33 children, according to Eurostat. The country’s traditional concept of family has changed over the years due to circumstances surrounding the upbringing of a family.

Employment is a key factor in a Spaniard’s decision to have a family. Between a 16 percent unemployment rate among adults over the age of 25 and the cost of living, Spanish society often pushes both the mother and father in a household to be working parents.

Research shows becoming a working parent isn’t always possible until later in a Spaniard’s life. According to the Council for Youth in Spain, 80 percent of people under the age of 30 live at home. This is partially due to a youth employment rate of 30 percent of young adults under the age of 25, according to Eurostat.

In addition, the average Spanish woman gives birth for the first time around the age 31, which is above the European average of about 29, according to Eurostat. This is caused by young people pursuing secondary education and not being able to start their careers until later in their lives. Therefore, they can’t support a household on a stable income until then.  

Pedro Moral, a Madrid butcher shop owner, said the difficulty of family life in Spain depends on the careers of the parents.

“It depends on your job like anywhere else,” Moral said. “It is complicated. If you are doing well, you can have a comfortable life.”

With both parents in a household working, families often turn to child care services, like day care centers or nannies. On an average day in a Spanish city as large as Madrid, one can come across several nannies caring for as many as five or six children each.

Moral believes it takes determination and coordination on the parents’ part to make an arrangement work for their own families.

“We do not use child care services because then we could not enjoy time with our children,” Moral said. “Their mother works in the mornings and I work in the afternoons.”

Barcelona couple Yolanda Cantos and Juan Rodriguez are both working parents. They are able to leave their 6-year-old daughter with her grandparents during the day, instead of resorting to child care services. (Anne Collins Wilcox)

Barcelona native Yolanda Cantos and her husband Juan Rodriguez have one daughter. The majority of Spanish parents use daycare services because they cannot afford to stop working, according to Cantos.

“We had the good fortune to not have to care for our daughter during the day because her grandparents were not working,” Cantos said. “They took care of her. But if not, I would have had to stay home because my paycheck would go to pay the daycare center otherwise.”

Today, Spanish families only have one or two children at maximum, according to Cantos. She says the number of children in a family may have been three or four some decades ago. But research shows how uncommon that is in modern Spain.

A 2015 analysis from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics shows there were 3.87 million households consisting of couples without children, 2.91 million couples with one child and 2.78 million couples with two children in the country. Only 569,000 Spanish households, or 3.1 percent of Spain’s entire population, had three or more children.

If Spaniards have more than one child, there is often a wide age-gap between them. Moral and his wife have a 17-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son. Cantos says there is a 10-year age difference between her brother and herself.  

Psychologist Carmen Gonzalez believes it is easier for both parents in a household to be working when children are old enough to be in school, like her 7-year-old son Roman. (Anne Collins Wilcox)

Madrid psychologist Carmen Gonzalez says she and her husband were lucky enough to work while their two children were young. They eventually stayed in a day care center until they were old enough to attend school.

Gonzalez believes families are having less children as circumstances become more difficult.

“Part of it is finances, another part is organization--work that allows you to have children or not have them,” Gonzalez said. “Since you have to take care of them, a lot of people decide not to have children. ”

Despite the overwhelming difficulties, there are options for those who want to avoid the additional child care costs. Gonzalez says couples, especially young couples, can coordinate with grandparents or other family members for assistance, similarly to what Cantos and Rodriguez did with their daughter.

Extended family members are considered to be a part of the traditional nuclear family in Spanish culture. That’s why family is a commonly relied-upon alternative to child services, aside from family members being a low- or no-cost option for child care as well. Extended family members are not viewed as distant relatives, but immediate family.

Despite the several child care options available to Spaniards, the pattern of small families in the country isn’t expected to change anytime soon. Low birth rates and high life-expectancy rates are predicted by Spain’s National Institute of Statistics to lead to a significant decrease in the Spanish population by the year 2050. With an already small ratio of children per household trending downward, it’s unclear what the future holds for the average Spanish family.