Thinking about retirement is a pastime of slow digestion and that do not usually practice (because of the vertigo) who premiere their first work. “I have not stopped to think. I am still studying and I just hope to be lucky and find a job soon. If I have money to throw it, it is worth it. What I do not see is that you have to work so many years to have a decent retirement. Above all, because when you are older what you want is to rest,” says Guillermo L., 20, who studies the degree of business administration and management at the Complutense University of Madrid.
The most recent sociological literature portrays ―The born between 1997 and 2012 -, the last to enter the labor market, with less Bisoñez de la Imaginada, and a more realistic approach than optimistic of life. Partly by the scars that accumulate (now!) Of the financial crisis of 2008, the 2020 pandemic or the inflation have been unleashed since then. Empty pockets that when they begin to fill themselves do not allow them to develop their life project. As to think about retirement.
However, the sustainability of the pension system depends (in large part) on the strength of its quotes, and singularly on those that must contribute in the coming decades. The latest projections on their future perspective have encouraged the ghost of precarious retirees, and fueled a debate as valid today as 50 years ago, with faced positions and arguments that are thrown and refuted to the Albur of figures that run more than the same time.
The last study that has set the fuse again launched last week, and was signed by the Valencian Institute for Economic Research (IVIE), together with the BBVA Foundation. The main conclusion of the report placed the young workers of today before the perspective of having that if they wanted to reach a pension as comparable to their latest salary (what is technically known as a replacement rate). All for the delay in accessing a good job and the consequent difficulty in accumulating long work careers.
A moral that S (false news) for CC OO, which considered the “improveable rigor” report and accused its authors of trying to feed “the account of the intergenerational conflict” to “justify rights cuts.” Nor did he like anything in the Ministry of Social Security, where his person in charge, Elma Saiz, published in X A video disassembling the prognosis “with real data.”
Are you young and have heard that you will not have a pension in the future? Or what will you touch work until 71 years?
❌ That is not so, and here I quickly explain you why
– Elma Saiz (@saizelma)
“They have been doing projections that are not fulfilled and foreseen the most varied catastrophes for more than 30 years and they don’t care, because what they intend is to sell something else,” reflects Carlos Bravo, secretary of Social Protection and Public Policies in CC. Oo. That “other things” are pension plans, whose funds (adding those of the individual system, employment system and associated system) increased 7.7% in 2024, by about 9.5 billion euros, until it is 131,830 million euros, according to Inverco data.
Facing young people with retirees or those who are closer to retirement is to give wings to a “scoundrel” debate. In addition, he defends that cutting resources to pensioners – more than ten million pensions are paid per year, six and a half million retirement – would have direct implications on the economy. “If you weaken the system, domestic demand resent you and with it employment. It makes no sense,” it is convenient. “20 -year -olds may not think about retirement, but when they arrive at 40 they will begin to do it, the 50 will seem the most important thing in the world,” he acknowledges.
Growing frustration
Javier Muñoz is responsible for the socioeconomic area of the Youth Council of Spain. The studies carried out by its organization, such as the Emancipation Observatory, accredit a precariousness that prevents young people from throwing forward with their lives: eight out of ten workers aged 16 to 30 still live in the family home. “Imagining life at 71 is a complicated exercise. But what is clear is that the current productive model is very different from the year,” he acknowledges. “Before the normal thing was to have one or two jobs throughout your life until you reach retirement. It is now unfeasible to think about something like that, while talking about the promotion of mobility to hide that this is really a symptom of instability we live,” he adds.
Muñoz acknowledges that although youth unemployment rates have been reduced and that temporary hiring has also diminished, there are still two main problems that block the future of young people: unwanted partiality, and the impossibility of accessing a home. “Not even when we get a job, although little by little they have been raising salaries, we can leave home. This generates a lot of frustration,” he adds. “The solution to this problem does not go to take it away from some to give it to others, but to improve the conditions of young people and the current labor market so that we can all benefit.”
Movedizas Arenas
Around the everlasting debate on the strength of the pension system, an essential pillar of the welfare state, the new critical winds not so much the onslaught between the public and the private and its economic fluctuations (which also), but they perch on the vital perspective that is glimpsed in the horizon for those who today walk on moving work sands. “The pension is still the reflection of the professional career, and right now the image that is projected to young people is not good,” reflects Ignacio Conde-Ruiz, deputy director of Fedea, professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, and author of the book, who signs with her daughter Carlotta.
While the mantra that millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) They will be the first generation, it is settled more at the expense of life, and singularly from the house, that the zeta They will retire worse than their grandparents now begins to take flight. “They are the group that suffers from more work precariousness, with partial works and lower salaries, and which, in addition, will now have to endure higher social contributions,” warns Conde-Ruiz, which indicates, fully, to the last pension reform signed by former Social Security Minister José Luis Escrivá, as one of the causes of this distortion.
“A part of the pensions with direct transfers of the State are already being paid based on the general budgets, 30% of the total expend pensions breaking with the idea of intergenerational justice, ”he says. The State in public coffers for the payment of pensions in 2024. “If I were a 25 -year -old, the last thing I would think about is how my life is going to be with 71 years. I would have enough to overcome the challenges I have now,” he adds.
The annual expense in retirement pensions has been growing progressively throughout the last decade. Specifically, 72.1% between 2015 and 2025, until reaching 9,914 million euros in the June payroll, according to social security records. An amount that will continue in the growing with the revaluation according to the CPI that they will experience every year, and that will also increase throughout the next decade with the withdrawal of the baby boomers, A very large cohort that will perceive pensions higher than the current ones.
Appeals Conde-Ruiz to the extinct sustainability factor, introduced by the PP, which Escrivá finished fulminating in the modification of 2021, to incorporate the mechanism of intergenerational equity (MEI), an instrument that from the first moment disturbed Brussels. To the point that recently Brussels has forced the government that made the Fiscal Authority (Airef) on March 31, despite concluding this.
“People no longer live in a time when life expectancy was 70 years (today is 84), and where the birth rate was three children per family (now 1.12). It is clear that the system must change,” says Manuel Alejandro Hidalgo, professor of applied economy at the Pablo de Olavide University of Seville. This economist considers that every time we will retire later not out of necessity, but “by law of life”, and “because it will have to be so”, so that the scheme endures.
In his opinion, anticipate the viability of the pension system at 30 or 40 years, despite seemingly risky, it is easier than calculating the income of a company for next year, “because the great economic or demographic tendencies are less changing.” However, Hidalgo considers that the debate on pensions should not be raised in the future at the moment, but in present terms. “The most likely scenario is that in a very short time the pension system tense a lot, and that will generate costs that we must face now,” he warns.
Sectoriality
According to an analysis of Eurofirms People First, the Z generation has burst strongly into the labor market, especially in areas such as hospitality, commerce, logistics or events, which have become the work entrance door for the youngest. In the last year, social security affiliation of children under 25 has grown 6.5% year -on -year, exceeding the increase registered among older workers. A thrust that, however, does not prevent the youth unemployment rate from continuing to be very high: 26.5% in the first quarter of 2025, although with a slight reduction compared to the previous year.
Regarding the sector distribution, the services sector concentrates 80% of the contracts signed by young people, and shows an interannual growth of 4.5%. This strong concentration contrasts with sectors such as agriculture and construction, where youth participation is much lower, with only 7% and 3% respectively. The industry, although traditionally less linked to youth, is experiencing a light but constant incorporation of novel profiles, representing 23.4% of contracts in this sector.
Among the duties of Spain, in addition to losing weight the global unemployment rate (11.36%), and trying to reengate the workers senior to the labor market, to maintain the strength of the labor market, all experts agree to underline the importance of facilitating the incorporation of immigrants, and knowing how to capture talent outside our borders. To the point that Banco de España studies indicate the need to remain the relationship between the number of people of working age and that of pensioners.
