80% of Spaniards under 30 still live at home with parents

Only 20.5 percent of young Spaniards managed to leave home in the last six months of 2015, an “emancipation rate” down 4.81 percent on the same period of 2014, according to the Council for Youth in Spain (CJE).  

In a report released on July 1st, the CJE revealed that even when young Spaniards succeed in leaving the family home, the vast majority – 84 percent – share a flat with two or more people.

Women are more likely than men to leave their parents' home, the study shows. 

Women (mujeres) are more likely to leave home than men (hombres). Graph: CJE

The worsening situation is, according to the CJE, down to the “fragile state of Spain’s labour market”  and “tough housing market conditions”.

Spain’s youth unemployment rate has hovered at around 50 percent since the beginning of the economic crisis and currently stands at 46.2 percent.

Thousands of young people have left the country to look for work abroad, with the UK, Germany and France among the most popular destinations.

Spain’s unemployment rate is the highest in the EU after Greece, and many young people have struggled to find a foothold on the employment ladder.

The majority of young people take jobs that the CJE classes as “precarious”, “part-time” and “seasonal”; a whopping 92.9 percent of all contracts signed by under-29s were temporary, while only 7.1 percent of contracts were permanent.

The study also showed that 57 percent of Spaniards are overqualified for the jobs they do manage to obtain.

The report also warned of the risk of poverty facing young people in Spain. In 2014, 36.4 percent of young Spaniards were living in poverty.