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UNDERSTANDING SPANIARDS

The good, the bad and the ugly: What are the regional stereotypes across Spain?

Spaniards often have to deal with stereotypes from abroad which misrepresent them as just party-loving and lazy, but even among the inhabitants of the country’s 17 regions there are clichés that live on to this day which paint people from certain areas all with the same brush.

Published: 1 February 2022 16:06 CET
Updated: 10 March 2023 08:57 CET

Basques, Andalusians, Riojans and Catalans are all subject to regional stereotypes, as are people from all of Spain's other regions. Photos: Ander Guillenea, Cristina Quicler, Josep Lago, Oscar del Pozo/AFP

If you’ve lived in Spain long enough, you may have heard a joke that kicks off with “the curtain rises and an Andalusian, a Catalan and a Basque walk into a bar”.

The chiste (joke) then proceeds towards a punchline that will mock one or all of the subjects based on regional stereotypes, usually ones that aren’t positive.

It may seem like harmless fun but the last time the Spanish Centre of Social Studies (CIS) decided to carry out a survey among the general population asking them about regional stereotypes was back in 1994, perhaps because not everyone was happy with the outcome of the results.

This pigeonholing based on people’s region of origin has lived on nonetheless, as is the case in pretty much any country around the world.

The huge box office success of Spanish comedies Ocho Apellidos Vascos (Eight Basque Surnames) and Ocho Apellidos Catalanes (Eight Catalan Surnames), which deal heavily with regional stereotypes, is testament to these enduring clichés.

Sometimes stereotypes used in Spain can be due to admiration or affection, other times it’s light joshing, but on occasions it can be prejudiced and offensive.

stereotypes spain — Thousands of people in Gijón (Asturias) try to beat the world record of most people simultaneously pouring cider. But do Asturians really deserve their reputation for being heavy drinkers? Photo: MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP

More often than not it’s people from the southern half of Spain who get crossed off as lazy and frivolous, sometimes just because they have a southern Spanish accent, whereas those from the wealthier north may instead be regarded as brutish or rude right off the bat.

At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that a stereotype is simply a generalisation about how a group of people behaves and although it may be true to some extent, it’s not universally valid and defining of a person’s character.

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So without further ado, and with the purpose of our foreign readership in Spain and abroad understanding the idiosyncrasies of Spanish society, here are the main stereotypes Spaniards resort to depending on the region they’re talking about.

Andalusian people: happy, funny, party-loving, lazy

Aragonese people: noble, stubborn, uncouth

Asturian people: patriotic, heavy drinkers

Balearic people: friendly, reserved, untrusting

Basque people: separatist, strong, honest, stubborn

Canarian people: friendly, happy, lazy

Cantabrian people: proud, dry character

Castellano-Leonese people: generous, serious, unassuming

Castellano-Manchego people: pure-blooded Spaniards, brutish

Catalan people: stingy, independent-minded, hard-working, proud

Extremeñan people: village-minded, lazy

Galician people: closed-minded, superstitious, untrusting, affectionate

Madrileño people: cocky, open-minded, proud

Murcian people: fun-loving, crude

Navarran people: noble, brutish

Riojan people: welcoming, heavy-drinking

Valencian people: party-loving, well-groomed, corrupt (mainly their politicians)

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So overall people from southern regions are considered lazy but friendly and fun by their northern countrymen, whereas southerners see people from colder northern Spain as having a drier character and more uncouth manner.

However, even though Spain and its people’s characters, priorities and language are clearly diverse, it doesn’t take long to see that in most cases a Basque or Catalan person has more in common with an Andalusian than with a Brit or German, even though they might not always like to admit it.

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The real reasons why Spaniards don't want to have children

Spain has the second lowest birth rate in the entire EU. According to a study by business school TBS Education-Barcelona, in Spain there are now only 7.6 births per 1,000 inhabitants, only ahead of Italy, with 7.1.

Spain is below the European average, too, which is 9.3 births per 1,000 inhabitants, and the total number of births reached its lowest number in history in 2021 with just 338,532 babies born in the country. That represents a huge 39 percent drop compared to a decade ago.

Economic and work reasons are often cited as the primary reasons why Spaniards are shying away from parenthood. Is this all that’s at play in a society where children and family have traditionally been venerated?

Money

One of the main reasons that Spaniards are having fewer kids is, of course, money. That is to say, many may like to have kids but don’t feel like they can in the current economic situation. With low salaries, high unemployment rates (particularly among young people), rising cost of living and, above all, rocketing rental and mortgage prices, many Spaniards are forced to stay at home with their parents into their thirties or share a property, hardly ideal living situations for raising children.

In 2019 Save the Children estimated that the minimum cost to be able to raise a child ranges between €480 and €590 per month, a figure that has surely risen even higher in the last few years as inflation has pushed the cost of living skyward.

Catalina Perazzo, from Save the Children, told ABC: “We are facing a hostile scenario for families who want to have children, as the economic situation is not good for them and they are forced to delay the age of having children until they have more job stability.”

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Career over kids

Naturally, in such uncertain economic circumstances, many Spaniards are focusing instead on their careers. Sadly, many women know that having a child and taking maternity leave, then returning to work, could put them at a disadvantage when it comes to career progression.

But then the paradox is that if young mothers are able to arrange flexible working hours (not something all workplaces are willing to allow) reduced hours will also mean reduced pay.

Cadena Ser looked at the study by TBS and found that the most significant long-term variable in the reduction of Spain’s birth rate was the incorporation of women into the workplace. In fact, there is a high correlation between the number of women working in Spain and the birth rate (-0.74 from 2017 to 2021). This indicates that while the number of employed women increases, the birth rate decreases.

Personal freedoms

The third reason is more of a choice. Some Spaniards are not having offspring (or delaying having them) due to the increased responsibilities and loss of personal freedoms that come with caring for a child.

According to a University of Málaga study, researchers found that the survey answer “my personal freedom would be reduced” by having children is gaining strength as an explanation as to why some hedonism-seeking Spaniards don’t want kids.

“In-depth interviews with these couples reveal the interesting social construction that they make of the happiness of life as a couple without the need for offspring,” says the study, which concludes: “They don’t want to take on responsibilities that are for life”.

Added to this, it seems among younger generations of Spaniards – as is arguably the case around the world – an emphasis on the individual as opposed to groups (whether it be the family unit or wider community) is on the rise.

Changing relationship models, or no relationships at all

Similarly, this increased individualism and emphasis on personal freedoms also manifests itself in the dating and relationship sphere, something that has a knock-on effect on birth rates.

There seems to be a growing desire among Spaniards to have casual dating experiences without the commitment of a relationship. The study by the University of Málaga concludes that some young people in Spain now view love as an object of ‘consumption’.

This, combined with an increased want for personal freedoms and limited economic opportunities, has been exacerbated dating apps, which are often used in order to quickly and easily engage in short-term, commitment-free relationships rather than solid, long-standing commitment that could result in marriage or children. In other words, no-strings-attached dating and sex rather than traditional relationships and marriage.

There are also currently more singletons than ever – 14 million Spaniards – 52 percent of whom are men and 48 percent women, according to INE figures.

Among those who do want to be mothers, Spanish women would prefer to have an average of 2 children compared to the 1.2 they actually have. Photo: Ratna Fitrey/Pixabay.

Lots more worries and uncertainty about the future

In 2022, Spanish daily El Español interviewed 30 Spaniards aged 30 and under about why they didn’t have and/or didn’t want to have children.

Their answers revealed many of the issues raised above – a lack of financial means, job instability, prioritising career growth, the impossibility of finding a proper work-family life balance, fear of being limited, not wanting the responsibility – all of which leave young Spaniard living day by day, incapable of planning long-term for the future.

Nonetheless, other answers were also given, such as arguing that the world is already overpopulated, that more children contribute to climate change and overconsumption, fear by women of the effects of pregnancy on their bodies, that they wouldn’t be able to provide their kids with a proper education and the need to take care of themselves and save up as they won’t be getting a Spanish pension (even though the lack of children is contributing to precisely to this risk).

Those who have a child have second thoughts about repeating

According to figures from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics, Spanish women who do take embark on motherhood would prefer to have an average of 2 children compared to the 1.2 they actually have.

Half of the Spanish women say that they would have liked to have been a mother five years earlier. Most, when asked, claim to want to have at least 2 children, and almost 1 out of 4 women who have passed the optimal reproductive age would like to have had more offspring.

In an article by national broadcaster RTVE, finding an ideal work-family life balance once there’s a child in the mix is cited as being a “utopia”, meaning that adding another child could lead it all come crumbling down. They say it takes a village, and for parents in Spain the help they get from grandparents is often the only way to keep everything afloat.

Foreign mothers picking up the slack

As The Local has covered before, Spain’s worryingly low birth rate presents some pretty stark demographic problems for the future. The combination of declining birth rates and increasing life expectancy means that the Spanish population is getting older, with the percentage of the population over 65 years of age predicted to peak in 2050, when almost one in three will be 65 years old or older.

This presents added stresses to Spain’s healthcare and pension systems and will create gaps in the labour market.

Fortunately, migrant mothers in Spain are having far more children than Spaniards. In fact, Spanish society will be made up of more first, second and third-generation immigrants in the future, with the INE figures predicting that Spain will gain over 4 million (4,236,335) people by 2037, with the population set to reach 51 million. That represents an increase of 8.9 percent.

Currently, one in three children born in Spain have at least one foreign parent.

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