A constantly falling birth rate
With less than one child per woman (0.86), the Canary archipelago is at the bottom of the Spanish fertility rate, according to a study published by the INE in 2021. A result that reflects a profound change in the demographics of the Canary Islands, which in just twenty years have gone from being a region with a rather high birth rate and results comparable to European figures to a community with its worst data in 30 years. According to experts, this decline in the birth rate is largely due to low wages and high unemployment.
And death and life expectancy figures are not helping the picture. Started in 2018, this movement continued in 2019, 2020 and 2021. With a negative balance between births and deaths amounting to nearly 4,500 over the last four years. In addition, its life expectancy places it at the bottom of the Spanish scale, only surpassed in its poor results by Andalusia, Ceuta and Melilla. In 2021, the Canary Islands had a maximum life expectancy of 82 years for those born that year, two years less than Madrid (84.6) and almost a year for La Rioja (83.2), the two communities with the highest life expectancy. To analyze this result, specialists point to its health situation, one of the worst in Spain, and its very high poverty rate. A study published by Caritas in March 2022 estimated the number of Canary Islands at risk of poverty or social exclusion at 50% (compared to 29% in 2018). However, one factor continues to increase the Canary Islands' population: immigration, which sometimes offsets the drop in the birth rate. This is the case, for example, of the south of the island of Tenerife, which has better demographic prospects due to its economic activity. The population that comes to work there is younger, therefore of a higher childbearing age and often comes from populations that continue to have more children. Following the logic of this economic data, El Hierro is the "oldest" island, followed by La Palma and La Gomera. The "youngest" are Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, more prosperous.
Women and young people still in a precarious situation
While the presence of women in the labor market has increased in general in Spain in 2020, with an employment rate of 60.9% (compared to 53.1% in 2013 - Source: Eurostat), this country remains the2nd European country in terms of the importance of the unemployment rate of women, with a figure of 14.8%, but which rises to 18.6% for the Canaries. Politically, the government of Pedro Sánchez has shown a strong signal by including more women than men (11 against 6). Unfortunately, at the same time, Spain has deplored many murders of women: 39 in mid-October 2018 and almost 1,000, since they began to be counted in 2003. For this reason, Women's Day on March 8, 2018, was marked by unprecedented demonstrations throughout Spain, with nearly 30,000 people participating in the Canary Islands. For a day that was also intended to be the occasion of the first feminist strike. This anger manifested itself again in April 2018, after the decision considered lax of the court of Pamplona not retaining the charge of rape, but that of abuse of weakness, after the assault of a young woman during the Sanfermines of Pamplona. In the Canary Islands, women also continue to demonstrate regularly when murders of women come into the news.
Regarding the situation of young people, a study published in 2018 by the Reina Sofia Center for Adolescents highlights a very worrying situation. Together with Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura, the archipelago is one of the Spanish communities that are farthest from the average results obtained at European level in terms of first employment and family emancipation. A situation that for the Canary Islands has worsened in recent years. And that, as in the rest of Spain, has contributed to the successive movements of the milleuristas, young graduates lamenting the fact that they only earn €1,000 for their first job, and the nimilleuristas, who in the years of crisis reported that they did not even earn it.
When on June 30, 2005, Spain passed the law on same-sex marriage, it was the fourth country in the world to have such legislation, after Holland, Belgium and Canada, but the first with regard to the possibility of adoption, also retained in the law. In 2018, marriages between same-sex couples amounted to 4,726, or 2.9% of marriages. Without having the same attendance as MADO (Madrid Orgullo), the pride march that gathers more than a million people each year, the Gay Pride of Maspalomas in Gran Canaria has built up a certain notoriety by gathering more than 100,000 people in its May parade since 2004. And in June 2019, the 18th LGBTQ event in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has signified to the various political parties its wish that no regression occurs in this area.
6th community for Erasmus
Strong decentralization and the importance of private denominational education are the two main characteristics of the Spanish school system. It is based on 3 layers: pre-school education, school education and university education. In accordance with the European Higher Education Area, the Spanish higher education system has been composed of 3 levels since 2007: Bachelor, Master and Doctorate. As in the rest of Spain, the community is responsible for education up to higher education. The latter is the responsibility of the State. The Canary Islands have two universities, the oldest, created in 1927, is the University of La Laguna (ULL) in Tenerife and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), created in 1989. 2012 saw the opening of the first private institution of higher education in the Canary Islands, in La Orotava, Tenerife. And for the record, the Canary Islands was the first community to introduce emotional education in colleges since 2014. A subject that would have dropped the dropout rate, common in the Canary Islands.
