THREE OUT OF FOUR WOMEN IN SPAIN WOULD LIKE TO HAVE AT LEAST TWO CHILDREN: LACK OF CONCILIATION AND MONEY, CAUSES FOR NOT ACHIEVING IT

Labor or conciliation reasons and economic reasons, are the main reasons why the birth rate in Spain does not reach the desired figures.

Those are some of the conclusions that are drawn from the 'Fertility Survey of 2018', published by the National Statistics Institute (INE). According to the extracted data: Almost three out of four women in Spain would like to have at least two children.

The survey details that almost half of women between 18 and 55, including those who already have children, they want to have two children total. The highest percentage (48%) are among women over 40 and those between the ages of 25 and 29.

For its part, 25% of respondents want to have three children, a figure that reaches 27.0% in those over 35 years.

It also decreases the number of women who do not want offspring with age: 27.0% of those under 25 do not want to be a mother, compared to 16.7% of those between 25 and 29 years. Y Only one in 10 women over 30 do not want to have children.

In Babies and more In Spain fewer and fewer children are born (and it is very worrying)

Reasons for those who do not have the desired children

INE infographic

The most important, because they do not want to be mothers or because they consider themselves too young (those under 25).
In fact, 44% of women surveyed under 35 years of age declare that the main reason they have had fewer children than they wanted to have is because they still have time to fulfill their expectations.
From the age of 35, however, the labor or reconciliation reasons for family and work life and the economic ones are the most important ones for which fewer children were born.

Hence they claim incentives to raise the birth rate:

Increase in the duration of maternity / paternity leave, especially women between 30 to 34 years (31.1%) and 35 to 39 years (29.1%).

In Babies and more According to the AEPap, maternity leave should be extended to at least six months

Those over 40 advocate the flexibility in working hours for fathers and mothers with young children and a allowance for families with dependent children under 18.
28.6% of those under 25 do not believe, however, that it is necessary to encourage birth.

Men think like women

For the first time since this survey (the first is from 1977), men are investigated, according to the INE:

"to know their family and reproductive behavior and thus have a gender perspective since their work and family trajectories and their reproductive aspirations also have a direct impact on fertility."

There are no major differences between the number of children desired by men and women. The biggest discrepancy occurs in the percentages of men who wish to have three children, lower than those of women.

Most men want to have a total of two children (almost half of those between 25 and 39 years old and more than half for the rest), as is the case among women.
For its part, around 20% of men over 30 want to have three children, compared to 16.1% of those 25 to 29 years old and 10.4% of those under 25 years old.
The percentage of men who do not want to have children decreases as age increases, as with women: 32.1% of those under 25 do not want to have them, compared to 10.2% of those over 40.
It is also noted that eThe group of men who want to have only one child is relatively low at all ages, as is the case with women.

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