26% of the Spanish population (more women than men), 12.3 million people (2.6 million minors), are at risk of poverty and social exclusion. Although the figure was reduced last year, the report from the European Network to Fight Poverty (EAPN-ES), which Celeste López detailed last week in this newspaper, is like a slap in the face. One in three poor or at-risk people is in paid employment and more than 1.4 million have higher education (an exclusion group that has doubled since 2008).
The paradox is that jobs are created and the level of education is higher than ever. But having a job and higher education no longer guarantee, not economic solvency, but the minimum resources to live. Rising expenses such as housing, services or food leave many families' budgets short, reduced by job insecurity and low salaries. There are already companies that complain about a lack of commitment from young employees. But the majority cannot become independent even after entering the labor market.
Many experts warn of the social and long-term consequences (starting with late and declining motherhood, young people who will be late and poorer retirees...) The material effects for many families, lack of housing, being cold or roasting from the heat, poor Nutrition, children who can't even do extracurricular activities... are pressing.
But there is also that vital anguish, that discouragement that spreads among young people (they express it in each survey), who do not see how to change the situation and that makes them think small; It even overcomes the desire of many to take on the world.
The son of some friends has spent his adolescence saying that he only aspired to be a civil servant. At the last minute, he has had a technological revelation. Is it worth insisting your child go to university, study for four, five years at least, to end up in a job, whether gray or stressful, painful and poorly paid? Despite everything, yes, there will always be more promising exits for someone with education. Although it is not an exciting prospect.
Either we turn around the economic-labor model or we have to greatly increase public aid to young people, to families with minors and dependents... I don't know if it will be sustainable, but neither is a life without too many expectations.
