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In February they met The results of the living conditions survey (ECV) published by the National Institute of Statistics in Spain (INE). Then a trend was shown: the percentage of population at risk of poverty or social exclusion was placed In 25%. However, from those data now another situation is reflected with the arrival of the “summer”: one in three Spaniards cannot simply be considered a vacation.
Spain without rest. I told the weekend The country. In a Spain in which holiday tourism is part of the collective imaginary and GDPmillions of workers live a parallel reality: that of unattainable rest. In the piece they spoke hospitality workers who They had not left on vacation for almost a decade, and not because they do not have days off, but because They cannot afford use them.
Background, An endemic evil: With a salary just for above the minimum and a tight domestic economy between rentservices and a shopping basket More and more expensive, travel is simply unthinkable. This group is part 33.4% of Spaniards who, according to The INE surveycannot afford a single week of vacation a year, one of the basic indicators of social welfare according to European standards.
The great paradox. The fact reveals that having a job is no longer synonym for well -being: even with the minimum interprofessional salary having Increased 54% from 2018many people still do not reach the month, trapped between scarce income and a cost of life.
The rental and housing gap. One of the main factors that determine this holiday deprivation is the regime of possession of The house. While 28.4% of those who have a property cannot go on vacation, among the tenants the figure It rises to 43.4%and reaches 48.7% in social rentals. Housing, more and more expensiveIt consumes a disproportionate part of family income, forcing people to choose between roof or rest.
According to Carlos Dirtíaspresident of the European Network for the Fight against Poverty and Social Exclusion (EAPN), this constant financial pressure leads many to also renounce other forms of leisure and recreation, with Psychological and social consequences long range: isolation, loss of roots and growing emotional disconnection with the environment. The impossibility of taking a respite is not just a budgetary problem; It is also a structural threat to collective well -being.
The price of non -rest. The testimonies of waiters in The report of El País They illustrate how the lack of effective rest also has emotional effects: anxiety, exhaustion, feeling of stagnation. In others Other casesas in home employees, another angle of the problem arises: those who work while others vacation.
Guilt, according to The psychologist Adrián Navalónit is common among those who cannot afford vacations and feel that they lose a basic right. The absence of rest becomes, then, a silent form of emotional wear, which can lead to labor demotivation, chronic stress and low productivity.
Inequality symptom. Spain is not alone in this problem, but occupies a position above the European average. Until 2023, 18% of Spanish workers could not afford holidays, in front 15% in the EU team. Among the most vulnerable groups Young people from 16 to 29 years (36.7%) and single -parent families (47.8%), both with additional difficulties to accumulate savings or free time.
According to the data of the European Trade Union Institute, more than five and a half million of working people in Spain will spend the summer between employment and the couch, without the possibility of planning a single leisure day away from home. Solutions? As explained in the middlepossibly not only goes to improve wages, but to change the paradigm: assume that vacations are not a luxury or a whim, but a fundamental right that revitalizes the person, family and social fabric as a whole.
Image | Jesús Pérez
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