Progress in Spain, a false promise?

I am reposting this article, which was originally published in Spanish. Although it is specific to the Spanish context, the core issues are relevant throughout the Western world and hopefully to this audience.

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Since Franco's death, Spain has been in a race to catch up with the most advanced countries in central and northern Europe, such as Germany, Sweden and Denmark. And while the Spain of 2024 is not Denmark, the changes that those of us who have lived through the period since Spain's transition to democracy have seen are enormous and even impressive.

Many of these changes are what is commonly understood as progress, both economic and social. 

Since joining the European Union, Spain has experienced strong economic growth, modernised public enterprises and privatised a large part of them, built an extensive and modern motorway network and a world-leading high-speed train network, and experienced a spectacular increase in air traffic, largely due to the increase in tourism to and from Spain.

In the social sphere, Spain has made rapid progress in liberalising sexuality, equalising women's educational attainment and labour market participation, introducing gay marriage and advancing transgender rights, decriminalising abortion and passing laws against gender-based violence.

Despite these great changes and achievements, the same discourse of the last 40 years continues: let's go for more progress, we're not there yet! This leads us to goals that are increasingly difficult to achieve or, in many cases, downright absurd, although the public discourse never questions the validity of these goals. Is progress an endless journey with no destination? Is progress good by definition?

Gender equality

Having achieved almost equal access to the labour market and with 48% of jobs in Spain held by women, it is also women who have recently achieved higher levels of education. 56% of university students in Spain are women.

In the search for new milestones in gender equality, the goal now seems to be to achieve equity for women in specific professions, university careers and sport. It is not enough for women to have equal opportunities to pursue a profession. The aim is now to achieve equality of outcome, i.e. to reach 50% of places or jobs in each profession and career separately, and especially in managerial positions.

In Catalonia, for example, the fire brigade now reserves 40 % of new posts for women, despite the fact that there are men with better results in entrance exams, and despite the fact that a man with a strong body is at an advantage in certain situations that firefighters have to face.

It appears that those who seek greater progress and equality between men and women do not ask themselves whether equality of outcome (equity) is really a desirable goal from the point of view of women's well-being and happiness, as well as the common good of society as a whole. Perhaps if you believe that the lack of equity is solely a consequence of discrimination and the legacy of historical patriarchy, then it is logical to strive for equity. But anyone who knows anything about the theory of the evolution of the sexes knows that the two sexes are not equal, do not aspire to the same jobs and tasks in life, and also have different body and muscle strength.

It is clear that there are high costs to enforcing gender equity. But the relentless pursuit of the ideology of progress not only clashes with the reality of gender difference, it has profoundly destructive consequences in virtually every area of society.

The collapsing birth rate

Until recently, Spain had a strong and cohesive social fabric, at the centre of which was the family. Until the 1980s, fertility rates were high, territorial mobility was low and the Catholic Church had a strong presence in Spanish daily life. It promoted conservative values about marriage, procreation and family care. Grandparents helped look after grandchildren, and children and grandchildren looked after the elderly.

Today, Spain's fertility rate is the second lowest in Europe, marriage is a lifestyle model among many, and the Catholic Church has lost its social function. Society is becoming increasingly individualistic, and for many Spaniards the family no longer plays the role it did 40 years ago, but is in decline.

According to the ideology of progress, these great changes are not perceived as a loss. On the contrary, they are celebrated as a liberation from the oppression of living with traditional social obligations and responsibilities.

For example, one of the promises of progressive politics was and is that, thanks to the welfare state, individuals will no longer have to take on the responsibility of caring for the elderly. That is what the law of dependency is for, the care of the elderly. And if the state guarantees my pension, I don't need children to help me in my old age.

Fertility rates have fallen in all developed countries. The reasons for this are debated, but it is certainly a consequence of some of the dynamics that are seen as achievements of progress in today's discourse. One factor seems to be the sexual liberalisation of women, closely linked to the introduction of the contraceptive pill and the legalisation of abortion. Another important factor is the entry of women into the labour market, which generally delays pregnancy and makes it more difficult to conceive for biological reasons. The loss of Christian faith has undermined the institution of marriage and made childbearing a lifestyle choice rather than a Christian virtue. Finally, an increasingly individualistic culture means that having children fits less and less into couples' career and life plans.

Between 1980 and 2023, the number of children (aged 0-9) living in Spain has almost halved (from 6.1 million to 3.4 million). Over the same period, the number of dogs living in Spanish households has more than tripled to 9.3 million in 2023. For many Spanish individuals and couples, the dog has become the new baby that makes the loneliness suffered by an increasing number of people more bearable. Dogs are cared for, taken to the hairdresser, bought clothes and admired by the neighbours just like children used to be, but they have the advantage of requiring fewer sacrifices and are more compatible with an individualistic lifestyle.

The progressive promise of a life free from the obligations and responsibilities of tradition, religion and family, which can feel oppressive, is and remains attractive to most people. The powerful state protects an ever-expanding list of rights that free everyone to pursue their true and excellent nature.

But when individuals live lonely and often miserable and meaningless lives, filling them instead with consumption and distraction, it should be time to rethink the progressive promise.

But such a reflection is not currently part of the public discourse, even though the negative effects of the current course are becoming increasingly apparent.

The quick fix of immigration

Although we try to avoid it in our public discourse, the fact is that the current decline in fertility rates makes the welfare state unsustainable in the medium and long term. At present, there are about two contributors for every pensioner, and the public pension system is already in deficit. But in the not too distant future, the time will come when each contributor will have to pay for one pensioner's pension. The public health system will have the same problem. The welfare state is like a Ponzi scheme, kept alive for the moment because our governments have allowed mass immigration as a quick fix, and have been able to sell the resulting diversity and multiculturalism as another milestone of progress.

When Franco died, Spain was a country with almost no immigration, with less than 1% of the population born abroad. Between 1976 and 1996, about 900,000 people immigrated to Spain, and between 1997 and 2022, in just 15 years, Spain's immigrant population grew to 7.5 million. If we add to this the children of immigrants living in Spain, there are now around 10 million first and second generation immigrants living in Spain, representing 21% of the total population. Of the babies born in 2021 in Spain as a whole, 27% will be born to foreign-born mothers, a figure that has already reached 40% in Catalonia.

The general political consensus is that these high levels of immigration must be maintained in the future. It is presented as a necessity, without alternative, to meet the needs of the labour market and compensate for the low birth rate.

Spain is becoming a country of immigrants rather than a country of welcome, as it was until recently.

This policy, which can be observed in almost all Western countries, has a number of negative consequences, which we are already experiencing and which will increase in the coming years.

According to the ideology of progress, the more multicultural and diverse the society, the better for everyone. But this narrative is a lie. The high levels of immigration in recent years have already led to a huge breakdown of social trust in Spanish society, an increase in crime and a deterioration of the public sphere. The significant increase in knife crime, sexual assault and rape in recent years is clearly linked to high levels of irregular immigration, as is the case elsewhere in Europe.

The response to the rise in crime that we are already seeing is more policing and security in public spaces, a more authoritarian state and more digital surveillance. This leads us to follow the example of Singapore, a country with great ethnic diversity and pluralistic values, which nevertheless has a very low crime rate thanks to its highly authoritarian police force. 

In addition, fertility rates are falling rapidly around the world. Therefore, Spain's quick fix for low fertility will not work in the long run. There will soon be more demand for immigrants than supply worldwide. Moreover, taking into account all the costs associated with real immigration in Spain - which includes many people with very low levels of education and who are difficult to integrate into the legal labour market - it is likely that the net balance to the public purse will be negative and therefore will not serve to fulfil the promise of solving the problem of low fertility.

Tourism

The other phenomenon that has a strong impact on the lives of Spaniards is tourism, which is growing steadily. On the one hand, it generates large amounts of revenue for the Spanish economy, directly accounting for around 13% of GDP, in addition to the indirect GDP of all the services and production derived from tourism. 

The other side of the coin is the impact that tourism has on the daily lives of Spaniards in a large part of the country, especially on the coast and in cities such as Barcelona. The centre of Barcelona now functions almost exclusively for tourists. Most Barcelonians already avoid the centre whenever they can. As a result, all the infrastructure and the wonderful Catalan Modernist buildings are kept almost exclusively for tourist display, as if they were a museum. Residents can no longer enjoy their city because they no longer feel at home.

In addition, the success of foreign tourism to the beautiful Spanish coast means that fewer and fewer Spaniards can afford to go on holiday in their own country. The prices of hotels and apartments on the coast are rising much faster than the disposable income of Spaniards.

Has progress been worth it?

Throughout human history, major social changes have often been the result of major technological changes which, once introduced, make changes in social norms necessary and inevitable. This is the case with the relationship between men and women and the role of women in the economy.

From the perspective of 2024, many of the economic and social changes that have taken place in Spain over the last 50 years can be considered positive. It is undeniable that there has been a social demand for change in the role of women in society and the economy, just as it is undeniable that economic growth has brought many comforts and improvements in welfare that few would want to miss.

But it is also undeniable that recent decades have seen a break with tradition and the past that is unprecedented in human history. It is highly questionable whether the outcome of our obsession with forgetting the past and uncritically accepting all these ruptures as progress is, on the whole, so positive.

Is it really progress to achieve gender parity in all professions, to have few babies, lots of dogs, lots of immigration, to spend a large part of the public budget on security, to have the state watching over us everywhere, and to turn our cities into theme parks for tourists?

Our falling birth rate, mass immigration and tourism, and our increasingly individualistic culture mean that families, local community life and our whole social fabric are becoming weaker and more fractured.

We should ask ourselves whether, with all the great changes this country has undergone since the transition to democracy, we have lost more than we have gained. Even knowing that we cannot go back in time, we should begin to have a much more critical and deeper conversation about the idea of progress, asking instead what the good life is and how we can contribute to human flourishing. Surely we would conclude that more individualism, more liberalisation, more diversity and more consumerism are not the answer.