Lorena Fernández, a 28-year-old graphic designer, has been working in Madrid for a year. Despite dreaming of moving out of her parents’ house and having an apartment to herself, she settles for sharing a flat with two friends as that is all she can afford with her salary of just over 1,100 euros a month. According to the Observatory of Emancipation of the Youth Council of Spain, in the second half of 2023, the average cost of housing (rent plus basic utilities) exceeded by 125.84 euros the median salary of young people aged 16 to 29. This means even dedicating all their income, they could not afford a house. Between the first and second half of the previous year, rents increased by 2.5%, reaching a median rent of 968 euros per month, a 10% increase from 2022. Utilities increased even more at 17%, with an average cost of 163.61 euros per month for water, electricity, gas, and other services. This makes the rule of housing cost not exceeding a third of monthly income increasingly unrealistic, pushing younger generations to find alternative ways to move out or resign themselves to staying in the family home.
A study reflecting data from 2006 shows that last year marked a sad milestone as the cost of housing exceeded the median earnings of young workers for the first time. Even during the real estate bubble with skyrocketing property prices, the rate was not as high. Since then, the median salary of this population group has only increased by 6.1%, while rent has gone up by 40.7%, making it impossible to live independently. Sharing an apartment has become the new normal for many young university students, couples with and without children, and migrants looking for a home in Spain, all without escaping the cycle of over-indebtedness. Ana García works as an administrative assistant in a logistics company in Barcelona and struggles to afford her 60-square-meter house in the Sant Andreu de Palomar neighborhood, sharing expenses with another girl. Nearly half of her income is spent on rent, highlighting a concerning trend where the median price of rooms accounts for 36.2% of a young person’s salary, six points higher than recommended.
The prospect of buying a house is also challenging as house prices increased by 5.3% in a year, averaging 184,230 euros. Someone like Ana would need to save almost four and a half years of her full salary just to afford a down payment. Given the high costs in both rent and purchase, it comes as no surprise that 83% of young people were unable to become independent last year, leaving the emancipation rate at 17%. While the rate has shown improvement over the past two semesters, reaching its highest level since the 2020 pandemic, it still falls short of pre-2020 figures, with a significant gap compared to neighboring countries where the rate is almost 15 percentage points higher.
The strength of the job market in 2023 favored the younger population, with a 4% increase in median salary to 12,609.26 euros net annually and a slight decrease in unemployment to 21.2%. However, the challenges in accessing housing overshadow these advancements, leading people to leave the family home at a later age. The average age of emancipation reached 30.4 years, surpassing the youth category as defined by experts. In contrast, the average age of emancipation in the rest of Europe is 26.3 years, according to Eurostat. This disparity highlights the impact of housing accessibility on the ability of young people to achieve independence. The current situation presents significant barriers for young individuals to achieve their goals of living independently and owning a home, leading them to either postpone those aspirations or face financial struggles.
