Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: Football baby boom and stopping students from renting

In this week’s Inside Spain we look at how previous footballing glory by the national team has led to a baby boom nine months later, and why the government’s next solution to the housing crisis is getting students out of the rental market.

Published: 13 July 2024 11:52 CEST
Inside Spain: Football baby boom and stopping students from renting
A woman holds up a sign reading 'Fernando (Torres) - I want you babies' during the 2008 Euro that Spain won. (Photo by FRANCOIS-XAVIER MARIT / AFP)

After 12 years without any major footballing success, La Roja is in a major tournament final, as they prepare to square off against England on Sunday in Berlin.

Could it spell a return to the glory days of 2008 to 2012, when Spain won ‘everything’ – two Euros and one World Cup?

What’s almost certain is that if Álvaro Morata and company score enough this weekend, so will Spaniards, if you catch our drift. 

When Spain beat the Netherlands in the 2010 World Cup final in South Africa, nine months later in April 2011 there was reportedly a 45 percent increase in births in España.

Something similar happened in 2008 after Fernando Torres helped beat Germany in the Euros that year. 

Some demographers question the figures, but the truth is that Spain could do with any extra push available, as the country’s birth rate is in the extremely low category according to the UN, together with countries such as Italy and South Korea.

Interestingly, just like two young guys from immigrant families are giving La Selección the edge at these Euros, migrant families are also responsible for keeping Spain’s ageing population afloat. 

OPINION: Young black stars mirror migrants’ contribution to Spain

In a Sigma Dos survey carried out in early 2024, 82.9 percent of respondents of a reproductive age said they were not considering having children in the next five years.

Living costs, personal and career sacrifices, family problems and a bad outlook on life in Spain were among the reasons given for not wanting to become parents.

READ ALSO: The real reasons why Spaniards don’t want to have children

With such a dire outlook, it’s likely that there will be far more Spanish babies with Yamal or Williams as a surname than Díaz or López, and regardless of what far-right Vox and their supporters think of that, it’s going to be a reality.

Just as this week’s prophetic viral photo of a young Messi bathing baby Yamal in 2007 prove, it is simply meant to be. 

While we’re on the subject of young people having a tough time getting their life in order, university students are definitely struggling when it comes to finding accommodation in Spain. 

READ ALSO: Two million university students in Spain fight to find a room

All they need is a room, but competition is so stiff in the current rental market that it’s no longer uncommon for them to have to pay over €500 a month for a few square metres.

According to Spain’s Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez, they’re indirectly putting extra pressure on regular rents’ availability and prices, as greedy landlords have realised that they can get far more money renting out each individual room than the whole unit to one person or family.

Therefore, as part of the series of measures that Spanish authorities keep coming up with to address the proliferation of holiday and seasonal lets and their impact on residential rents, the aim now is to get Spain’s 2 million university out of long-term rental units. 

In order to do this, the Spanish government will reportedly help public universities to provide more in-house accommodation for undergrads which is specifically for them. 

How exactly they will do this has not been announced, but if the progress of social housing as a solution to Spain’s housing crisis is anything to go on, it will be slow.

Rodríguez mainly pointed the finger at private universities, of which there are more than ever in Spain (27 new ones in the last 25 years compared to no new public ones).

“Their presence has put pressure on some rental markets where they are based,” the minister argued, adding that they should also make sure to provide lodgings to their students rather than let them “occupy” the cities.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: 10,000 crumbling castles and Galicia’s ‘pyromaniac’ ad

In this week’s Inside Spain we look at the struggle to preserve the country’s more than 10,000 castles and how a promotional advertising campaign for Galicia looks like it’s inciting people to torch the region’s forests.

Published: 27 July 2024 10:48 CEST
Inside Spain: 10,000 crumbling castles and Galicia's 'pyromaniac' ad

You’ve probably spotted a few castles on hilltops over villages as you’ve driven through Spain, and that’s because they’re everywhere. 

Each of Spain’s 50 provinces has at least a dozen or two, if not hundreds, as in the case of Barcelona, Cuenca, Cádiz, Soria, Zaragoza or Guadalajara.

The preservation of these vestiges of Medieval (and more often than not Moorish) Spain were actually a priority for Spain’s fascist dictator Francisco Franco, who in 1949 rolled out legislation which banned any of Spain’s castillos (castles) from being demolished.

However, Spain’s castles are “in general” in a “calamitous, catastrophic” state, Miguel Sobrino , author of the study “Castillos y murallas”, told Spain’s leading daily El País.

From the Napoleonic Wars to poor restoration jobs between the 1960s and 80s, many are the reasons that have meant that only a handful of these castles are in a presentable state. 

“Castles are like beetles, they die and dry up on the inside, but they seem to be alive because the exterior does not change,” Sobrino added metaphorically about the fact that many of these fortresses still look impressive from the outside and from afar.

Others blame the lack of funding from public coffers, and the fact that there is no law in place encouraging private investors to act as patrons for Spain’s heritage. When there is money available, the mayors of the underpopulated villages where these castles are usually located don’t always know how to organise the restoration properly.

Spain’s crumbling castles are another example of how “Empty Spain” is often overlooked and underfunded, despite being some of the most vivid examples of the country’s rich history.

Something that has been getting the attention it deserves (but for all the wrong reasons) is an English-language tourism campaign by the government of the green north-western region of Galicia.

“It’s a match, Galicia” reads the poster, with an icon of a flame and, in the background, a photo of the lush forests of Galicia’s Ribeira Sacra.

It was meant to draw a parallel between Tinder’s “It’s a match” slogan when the dating app puts two people together, and the fact that Galicia is ‘a perfect match’ for tourists.

However, social media users were quick to pick up that the wording and imagery appeared to be inciting people to set Galician forests on fire.

“As much as the Culture Council tells you to, don’t take matches to the mountains,” one X user jokingly wrote in response.

Even though it’s a harmless lost-in-translation gaffe, forest fires are no laughing matter in Galicia, nor anywhere else in Spain. 

Galicia had its worst forest fires ever in 2022 and the following year was a particularly terrible one for incendios (wildfires) in Spain, with more than 85,000 hectares scorched.

2024 hasn’t been as bad a year for forest fires yet (46 percent less than in 2023), but we are now in the midst of the heatwave season in Spain, when these destructive blazes tend to rage hardest and for longer.

SHOW COMMENTS