The 'stoical Spanish soul' seems able to cope with hardship

Jon Henley is travelling through Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece to hear the human stories behind the European
debt crisis. He hears from someone who believes the role of the family in Spain acts as a buffer in times of recession

Europe on the breadline: live tour – interactive
Eating tapas at a bar in the old part of town San Sebastian Donostia Basque Country Spain
Spaniards feel that 'as long as they can afford a beer and a tapa, things will probably be alright'. Photograph: Alex Segre/Alamy

Andrew Jarman from Seville writes in with his story:

"I've been living and working in Seville with my Spanish partner for 20 years. We have two sons – 18 and 15. Having children who are approaching the time when they have to start thinking about jobs is extremely worrying, with employment amongst young people running at around 40%.

If Britain was experiencing the levels of unemployment there are here, especially with the relative lack of benefits, it would be unsustainable, but there is one very important difference, the role of the family. Spanish society is still essentially based around the family structure, with people helping and protecting each other accordingly.

Belief in the state and civil society is not as strong. It still seems quite alien to me, having been brought up on the British idea that if you are old enough to work and are not in full-time education you're more or less expected to look after yourself, but at least in southern Spain, a great many well-educated young people (and that's a high proportion because further education is very widespread) don't really start thinking seriously about looking for work until their late twenties if not later, and are quite happy to stay close to the family nest.

Another factor is that wages have never been high here and the wage differentials are not as large as in Britain. Earning €50,000 a year is an extremely well-paid job and not many people earn that kind of money. There are a very large number of people earning between €1,000 and €2,000 a month, and anything above about €1,500 is considered to be quite good. This leads to a situation where people have more moderate ambitions.

That said, the cuts are biting hard and people have less money in their pockets. Banks have completely stopped lending money and businesses are suffering massively with problems of liquidity. "For rent" notices are increasingly common in closed down shops.

Large numbers of people work in the public sector and for local authorities, and they are being laid off or are simply owed ever growing amounts of wages. This is likely to get worse if and when the rightwing PP party wins the autumn elections, as expected. The PP are great admirers of the Cameron/Osborne approach.

As self-employed people, working largely in the languages sector, we have seen our income drop considerably. By cutting down radically on social activities like going out for drinks and meals etc, which is a central part of Spanish life, we can get by OK at the moment.

What seems to be true despite it all, though, is that perhaps because Spain has only been a fairly wealthy country for 30 years or so – following 40 years of hardship under Franco – many people are very stoical and seem to feel that things go in cycles. Ever-increasing wealth is perhaps not yet hardwired into the Spanish soul and people seem to feel that as long as they can afford a beer and a tapa, things will probably be alright."

If you have a story to tell, know a person I should talk to or live in a place you think I should visit, please contact me:, or @jonhenley (the hashtag for this venture is #EuroDebtTales)