The policy context of fertility in Spain: Toward a gender-egalitarian model?

Abstract

Fertility levels have remained very low in Spain since the mid-1980s, implying a future rapid aging of the population. The stagnation of fertility levels is closely linked to the substantial changes in the welfare regime experienced during this period, involving shifts in the share of the cost of children between social institutions. While exchanges of care and financial support across generations are still high, including a prolonged coresidence of young adults with their parents, the role of households as providers of care and other services has substantially declined. The rapid increase in women’s labor-market participation has led the dual-full-time-earner family model to become the norm, although this trend has not been matched by a similar increase in men’s unpaid work. These processes have weakened the ability of households to provide care and have created a demand for both state intervention and market solutions. The resulting care gap has been partially filled by the expansion of non-family childcare, in which the state has had an important role both as provider and regulator of the market. At the same time, childcare within the family has been undermined by policies in the domains of parental leave, part-time opportunities, and child benefits/tax allowances that provide little support to parenthood. Moreover, labor-market deregulation, focused on the young, has brought with it an increase in uncertainty about income, leading to the postponement of family transitions and depressing fertility.