Ana Hernández, 54, knows she’s a rare grandmother right now. It wasn’t 30 years ago, nor was it 20 years ago. But it is now. She did as many women of her generation did: she went to work, got married and, once her first child was born, left the working world to take care of the child. Then came the second. Moved from a small town in the north to Madrid, schools, extra-curricular activities, boys’ holidays… “I didn’t go back to work, I didn’t even think about it. But I recognize that I am a minority because even those of my age who were housewives found themselves with a divorce that forced them to start working”, she explains.
And it’s true that Ana is part of an increasingly small group, at least among women. In twenty years the group of housewives has shrunk by almost two million and is currently below three million (2,892,200), according to data from the first quarter of this year from the last Active Population Survey (EPA). It is not the first time that it has fallen in a quarter below three million, but the reduction recorded in 2022 compared to the first quarter (100,000 fewer housewives) predicts that the trend will continue during 2023, and even it will intensify. “It is an activity in clear decline”, point out the experts.
The same is not the case with the group of male housewives who, although they have always been in the minority and small compared to women, the reality is that in these two decades they have increased by more than 350,000. There are currently 445,000 men who are exclusively involved in housework and childcare compared to 89,000 in 2002.
This is the case of Andrés L., 46 years old, married with two daughters, who three years ago suspended his pilot’s license to take care of household chores. His wife, an engineer, spent years “putting aside any professional aspirations while the girls were small”. Until he was offered a managerial job that required him to travel every week and “he couldn’t refuse”. And then they made the decision that he would stay home and take care of it. The decision was clearly influenced by the fact that she had a “very good salary” and “we decided that I would leave mine to take care of the girls until they finish their studies. Because my partner is away all week, and I also missed a lot with my work. And we were clear that they had to be with one of their parents”.
Ana and Andrés are a clear example of what is happening in Spain since the beginning of the 21st century. Fewer and fewer women stay at home to take care of housework, while they, although in a much smaller proportion, join this profession without remuneration. And the two cases, experts point out, have to do with the higher educational level of women. They study to work and not to stay at home.
This the younger ones. Middle-aged women have also chosen to join the labor market to contribute to the family economy, especially since the 2007 crisis, according to the EPA data prepared by the INE.
For Marisa Soleto, director of the Fundación Mujeres, the data show a clear social change. “It is the change of women. We come from generations of mothers and grandmothers whose mission was to take care of the family as their main responsibility and working outside the home was an accessory.”
And he continues: “Young women have also assumed that staying at home implies a future of poverty and hardship (minimum pensions). This is clear to them because they have seen it in their mothers and their grandmothers”.
Fewer housewives mean more equality? “No, it is a social change for women, but it does not imply more equality. Because, although after finishing their studies and starting their working life the activity rate between men and women is very similar, the same does not happen when the first child is born. Then they either take a break in their working life, or reduce their working hours and make their situation more precarious”, points out Marisa Soleto.
In fact, 30% of women who return to the labor market after having their first child do so part-time. As for men, the percentage drops to 8%. After the first year of maternity, a woman’s salary is cut by 11%, but that of men is unchanged, according to the report Brechas de género by the Fundación de Cajas de Ahorros (Funcas). And he adds: more than 85% of leave for care that is applied for in Spain is by women.
