In Spain, the authentic social elevator, the lever that ensures young people of any social class a stable work future, is the completion of a university degree or higher vocational training. Having higher education not only greatly facilitates … obtaining a job is notable, but each year that passes is a more determining factor in being able to achieve it. This is demonstrated by the dossier ‘Young people, opportunities and futures’, published by the Social Observatory of the La Caixa Foundation.
When the century began, in 2001, the gap in the employment rate between young Spaniards with higher education and those who had at most the ESO degree, the compulsory training, was notable, at around eleven points at the ages of 25. at 34 years old. Among the former, almost 76% had employment and among the latter, 64.6% had achieved employment. But, with the passage of the next two decades, with data from 2021, the employment gap between some studies and others has not stopped growing. Currently it is 19 points, eight more than in 2001. The reason is that the employment of young people with higher degrees has increased three points, up to 78%, while the achievement of employment among those who do not pass compulsory secondary school has increased. fell five points, to 59%.
Among those who at least have an upper secondary degree (Bachillerato or intermediate FP) the problem is somewhat less, but the trend is very similar: an increasingly larger gap in obtaining a job. If at the beginning of the century the difference between the employment rates of some young people and others was only three points, now it is nine, with an increase of six points, which means that the employment gap according to qualifications has narrowed. tripled in twenty years. Higher education graduates are employed in 78% of cases (three points more than in 2001) and upper secondary school graduates are employed in 69% (four points less than then). Secondary school is starting to fall short.
The problem in Spain, however, does not lie in the percentage of higher education graduates, which are almost half of young people aged 24 to 34 (49%), three points above the EU average, but in the large number of those who either have no more than an ESO degree or not even that, due to the high percentage of early school leavers, which is almost double that of other neighboring countries. The result is that while in the EU only 12% of young people have remained in compulsory education, in Spain it is still 28% of those between 25 and 34 years old, almost 2.5 times more, which hampers , and every year more so, their chances of finding or keeping a job.
Shorter duration
The dossier published by the Social Observatory of the La Caixa Foundation provides two other studies on the situation of Spanish youth. The first demonstrates that the labor reform carried out by the Government in 2021 has substantially reduced the temporality of youth contracts, which decreased by 21% in the second half of 2023 compared to the same period in 2017.
The third study indicates that young Spaniards aged 18 to 34 are the most sociable with their family and friends on the entire continent, followed by Greeks and Portuguese and almost 20 points above the European average. The analysis also indicates that Spanish children suffer less social isolation than the European average, although the problem is more accentuated among those of foreign origin, those with a worse socioeconomic situation and the unemployed.
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