â—Only 13.4% of the young Valencian population is emancipated, according to the latest data from the Emancipation Observatory of the Spanish Youth Council and published yesterday by the Consell Valencià de la Joventut, CVJ. In other words, barely one in four young Valencians manage to leave the family home to be able to start a life of their own. Job insecurity, low wages and high housing prices are the main obstacles.
The figure is lower than the Spanish average, which stands at 15.9%. Andrea G. Henry, president of the Youth Council of Spain, explained yesterday that “job insecurity, the low wages received by young people and the high price of housing are the main obstacles that make it impossible for the young population to emancipate” .
This reality must be added, he added, the effects of inflation “which has led to a general increase in the cost of living and a loss of purchasing power among young people.” Although the temporary employment among young people has been reduced thanks to the labor reform of the central government, the rest of the indicators of job insecurity continue to show worrying figures.
For example, 50.8% of young people who work part-time in the Valencian territory do so involuntarily. In other words, they would want to do it full-time if they had the opportunity. In addition, the average salary received by Valencian people under 30 years of age is 805.88 euros, a figure that reflects the loss of purchasing power compared to the previous year and that is below the Minimum Interprofessional Salary (1,080 euros) and the average state (902.91 euros).
As for underemployment, which represents those people who work fewer hours than they would like or could, the figure stands at 16.7%. In addition, 44.5% of the young salaried population is overqualified for the work they do. The lack of quality jobs, with permanent full-time contracts for those young people who want it, and decent wages that correspond to the real cost of living, generate economic instability and uncertainty about the future. In the opinion of Esther MartÃnez, vice-president of the Consell Valencià de la Joventut, “these are two issues that prevent the vital project of thousands of young people from launching independently.”
The other major obstacle to emancipation that a young person has to face is the difficulty in accessing housing. A young salaried person has to allocate 72.3% of their salary to pay the rent if they emancipate themselves and 37.6% if they share a flat.
These figures have worsened compared to 2021 as a result of inflation and an excessive growth in the cost of living compared to the salaries of young people. The recommendation of the Bank of Spain is that this expense does not represent more than 30% of the salary.
The price of renting and buying homes has increased by 11.84% and 5.69% respectively, as well as the cost of basic supplies such as water, gas or electricity by 6.91%. Valencian youth have lost 5.04% of purchasing power in one year, since the salaries of young people have grown much less than what goods and services have done if the Consumer Price Index is taken as a reference (CPI).
The CVJ calls for the implementation of “policies that produce structural changes that have a profound impact on the labor and housing markets, such as the regulation of rental prices, the increase in the public housing stock, the increase in Minimum Interprofessional Wage or the prohibition of unpaid internships”, adds MartÃnez.
