In Spain there's no institutional pressure, but peer pressure. I'm expected to have children and pay +1/2 of my income in rent, have little savings, etc.
I'm pretty much an average spaniard in financial terms.
Climate change frightens me too.
I mean, If I had children I would have fear for their future and I would be completely ruined financially.
But it seems this is completely incomprehensible to older generations that wonder why youngster complain about getting hands in their pocket trough rent, pensions, debt, etc.
Older generations want you to have kids because in their mind they or their parents had kids through even worse things. Wars, famine, and crippling global economic decline are the cultural memory of our older generation. Existential things like affordability or an impending climate crisis pale in comparison to the village being bombed and seeing the affects of famine in front of you. The fact you are able to have an expensive apartment for yourself at all and be safe in it for the last several decades is a historical anomaly for most people especially on the european continent.
Excellent comment. The desire to have children being generationally transmitted has inertia that doesn't account for a landscape that has changed much more rapidly.
How exactly does that expectation work? What happens if you only pay 30% of your income to rent? Will you get passed over for a promotion if your boss sees you live slightly below what he is paying you, or something?
I'm pretty much an average spaniard in financial terms.
Climate change frightens me too.
I mean, If I had children I would have fear for their future and I would be completely ruined financially.
But it seems this is completely incomprehensible to older generations that wonder why youngster complain about getting hands in their pocket trough rent, pensions, debt, etc.