• Children, adolescents at most risk of social exclusion from poverty, report says
• Despite signs of recovery, Spain has second-highest youth jobless rate in EU
Children and adolescents in Spain are being hit far harder by the impact of poverty and unemployment in Spain than is the adult population, according to the latest edition of a European-wide social justice study published annually by the Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation, with some 34.4 percent of children and adolescents at risk of social exclusion from poverty as opposed to just 28.6 percent of the Spanish population overall.
The study, titled Social Justice in the EU – Index Report 2016, shows Spain has slipped in its ability to provide social benefits to its population from 23rd position to 25th out of EU countries this year and has seen a continous slide in its index standing since the first edtion of the report in 2008. The report’s authors attribute that continued deterioration to a number of “major political challenges to achieving broad-based social justice,” the largest of which is “ensuring broad access to the labor market.”
The report also says that despite symptoms of economic recovery in Spain that include a drop in the overall unemployment rate from 26.2 percent in 2013 to 22.5 percent last year, the Spanish labor market remains “far from inclusive” and presents a real obstacle to increasing social inclusion.
The report points out, for example, that unemployment among young people aged 15-24 in Spain stands at 48.3 percent compared to 20.4 percent for the same age group across Europe, with Spain having the second-highest youth unemployment in the EU and nearly double the youth unemployment rate it reported in 2008.
► Read More in Spanish at La Vanguardia, RTVE and Europa Press …
► Read More in English about the Bertelsmann index, here …
► Download a Copy in English of the study in PDF format, here …
