In the second half of 2021, youth emancipation in Spain stood at 15.6 percent, up 0.7 points from the first half of the year. Yet this improvement remains distant from pre-bubble levels, weighed down by the persistent gap between housing costs and young people’s incomes.
These figures come from a report by the Liberation Observatory of the Youth Council of Spain (CJE), released on the eve of International Youth Day. The profile of emancipated youth is not the youngest: the batch average age is around 29, and among them, earnings are higher by about 28 percent, with more often having permanent contracts and higher education completion.
The difficulty of liberation
The document outlines a precarious recovery. While there is modest progress, wage growth for young workers has not kept pace with housing prices, limiting the effect of the improved access to housing. If the housing-cost gap narrows, emancipation rates are expected to rise.
The report, authored by CJE president Elena Ruiz Cebrián and sociologist Joffre López, emphasizes that reducing the gap would boost the share of youths who can live independently.
They can get an average of 320 euro rent
The 2021 data show a period of historically low interest rates and conditions that could ease housing access. The report notes an 8.5 percent drop in the average rental price, while a typical young worker would need to set aside about 3.8 times their annual net salary to afford a mortgage on the average home in the market, priced around 170,000 euros.
As for renting, the average monthly cost is 848 euros, whereas the typical young person’s earnings amount to about 320 euros, limiting the ability to avoid over-indebtedness.
The emancipation rate for individuals aged 16–29 rose by a little over half a point, from 14.9 percent in the first half of 2021 to 15.6 percent in the last six months of the year. This figure is close to the end-2020 level (15.8 percent) but remains well below the 25 percent observed between 2006 and 2010 and far from the 2019 pace before the pandemic. The trend shows emancipation continuing, but at a cautious pace.
Across most autonomous communities, emancipation edged up six months, with exceptions in Aragon, Castilla-La Mancha, the Community of Valencia, and Galicia.
Precarious employment
The report argues that the modest rise in emancipation rested on a fragile recovery of jobs shattered by the pandemic. Youth unemployment fell to 23.6 percent by the end of 2019, and job creation again occurred among the self-employed at 6 percent, up from 4.5 percent in 2019.
Yet the renewal of employment remains characterized by insecurity and informality, underscoring that the overall improvement is built on precarious foundations.
The CJE president noted that when this small emancipation gain falters, further growth becomes uncertain and should be approached with caution. In this environment, many youths who do become independent share housing, and paying full rent alone would require a large salary share.
With this gap in mind, about 34.5 percent of emancipated youths share an apartment with unrelated roommates.
Big gender gap
Ruiz Cebrián highlighted a pronounced gender gap in 2021. Housing emancipation is higher among young women (18.5 percent) than men (12.7 percent). Women living alone represent about 13.8 percent, while 26.7 percent of men live alone.
The report points to greater job insecurity for women, including higher temporary-work rates (58.6 percent vs. 52.3 percent for men) and higher underemployment, with several indicators lagging behind those of men.
Women face more barriers in attaining stable work, and despite similar unemployment rates, the quality and security of jobs differ, contributing to divergent emancipation paths.
Small share of ‘nini’ and high share of ‘fog’
The study also reveals that the inactive youth population in the second half of 2021 reached 47.6 percent, with 89.7 percent of inactivity attributable to education, the highest figure in the historical series.
Only 2.4 percent of inactive youths were not pursuing education, while a notable share, termed “nini,” represented 32.5 percent of youths who combine work and study, a rise of six points from the final quarter of 2019.
The CJEU calls for prioritizing youth on the public agenda by adopting medium- and long-term policies that genuinely alter the situation for this group.