The short-term fertility indicator -average number of children per woman- says that in Spain this year it is
1.18,
a figure that rises because the foreigners who live here reach 1.45.
If we only talk about the Spanish, it drops to 1.12.
And which one should we register to maintain the population?
The
2.16.
With
Murcia
at the head of the autonomous communities in which the most children are born and
Asturias
in the last place, this is not a problem only for Spain, but for the whole world.
South Korea, Puerto Rico and San Marino occupy the top positions of the countries with the lowest birth rate, a list in which we are
eighth,
according to the World Bank.
ECONOMY AND HOUSING
An economic problem, of course.
According to a study by the Organization of Consumers and Users, the cost produced by the arrival of a child only in his first year of life is
7,706 euros.
A figure that implies that almost one in 10 families invest more than half of their income in the newborn.
That is not to mention the
extremely difficult access to housing,
an issue that restricts young people and which, according to all the experts consulted, is at the center of the problem of the low birth rate in our country.
And it is that "the birth needs a nest", assures the sociologist
Luis Garrido.
LIFESTYLE
EA is 33 years old, works in the marketing department of a transport company, is not married and expects her first child in two months.
"I have always wanted to be a mother and I raised it with my partner," says this woman, from a family of three brothers, who does not believe that she has a second baby.
"It is a lot of expense,
you have to take into account how difficult access to housing is. The salaries are very low. I know people my age who are still scholarship holders and who delay motherhood not because they don't want to, but because they can't. ", he reflects, and takes a step further:" But the issue goes further:
we want to travel, live many experiences and have many things.
Now there are many distractions and we think differently than before. "
This change in lifestyle is, for the sociologist
Elisa Chuliá,
a factor that adds to the pressing economic problem and has a lot to do with
longevity:
"We have a longer life and that leads us to delay decision-making , but biology is biology, "he says in reference to the reproductive age of women.
AGE IS DELAYED
And it is that EA is going to have its first child at 33 years old, but according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), in Spain the age at which there are more children is
34, with
very high rates also at 35 , 36 and 37. This delay in the decision to have children has, according to the expert, "two immediate effects: you think a lot about how many you are going to have, or you want to have them but it is already very difficult for you because of your age." Hence the avalanche of women who come to
fertility clinics,
although they do not always achieve their goal.
An alteration of the vital programming that also has a lot to do with the current family structures, or rather with the lack of them.
Garrido brings up these figures: in Spain in 2020,
10%
of zero-year-old children did not live with one of their parents, usually the father;
at 17, 24%.
Some social values that have changed, according to
Alejandro Macarrón,
coordinator of the CEU Demographic Observatory.
"In Spain the birth rate fell later than in the rest of the European countries due to the Franco regime, but then this changed rapidly," he says, adding: "More than half of the people will never marry."
This minimal stability of couples also results in fewer births: they are short relationships, in which there is no time to have them.
HOW TO SOLVE IT
Solutions?
Many, some very new and original.
In the first place, of course, those of
an economic nature.
"Companies must be relieved of the cost of a woman having a child," says Macarrón, "and compensated parents with less taxes."
Initiatives that have already been taken, for example, in the Nordic countries, and that have managed to improve the situation.
"Specific aid
for those who want to have children, a greater number of places in
public nurseries
and a change in the incentive system" is what Elisa Chuliá demands.
Alejandro Macarrón, who considers that this downward trend is not easily changed and that "a cultural transformation" is required, raises a different idea: "We are practically studying from 3 years to more or less 25. Why not It shortens this time and is supplemented later with refresher courses? In this way the age for motherhood would be advanced ".
And Luis Garrido, who is optimistic because "we will fix it, the human being has fixed everything" that he has faced, assures that it is a problem of
"bad adaptation".
"In Spain, the population pyramid is almost inverted. There are more older than children, and the former earn more money than young people, who are of reproductive age. Therefore,
politicians are dedicated to satisfying older people
because in That sector has many votes. What if each child were to have a vote exercised by their guardian to defend their interests? Everything would change there, because politicians would try to take better care of young people. "
To conclude, Macarrón points out, it is necessary to
"recover the desire to have children and show how important it is,
as it is convenient for all of us", since we are moving towards "an
unviable society
and both economic and emotional impoverishment. It is a problem that it must be placed at the forefront of the political and social agenda. "
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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