When exclusion is socially acceptable: The case of spain

© Jane Jenson, Jacqueline Laufer and Margaret Maruani 2000. It is exceptional to hear surprise voiced in the mass media about the structural characteristics of unemployment in Spain. Yet the numbers are inexorable. Statistics show that close to 3.5 million of the 16 million labour force participants are unemployed. In the first three months of 1997, a labour force survey found nearly one million households (908,000) in which all members were unemployed, a most spectacular figure. Later that year some improvement was recorded, with a 7% drop in households in this situation, but the numbers remain high. Furthermore, Spain, as everyone knows, is a country in which the welfare state is poor and weak, in terms o f levels o f benefits and social expenditures, in comparison with the other European Union countries.