Spaniards Live Long Healthy Lives, but the 50's and 60's Were Tough Years
On Being Poor and Being Poor
You will have gathered by now that my husband is from a poor family. Years after we were married, his mother told me that when her son, my husband, was at university completing his masters degree she had occasionally pawned some of the household linen to be able to send him money. University education is for all accounts free in Spain but, she felt it her duty to send him a small sum monthly to help pay for incidental expenses. As she told me this story, she was quick to say that she got the linen out of hawk at the start of the month when her school cleaner salary came in.
When Maria speaks with her friends about the hard times in the 50’s and 60’s, a frequently used expression is “things were so bad at your house you had your undies in hawk” or “tenia las bragas empeñada”!
There are in Spanish two different ways of saying “To Be”. There is “estar” which means “to be at this time” and there is “ser” which means “to be essentially and forever”. There is also a standing expression in my house which is “deja de ser pobre” or “stop being essentially, forever poor”. I should say this is not common usage! The expression is used by me when my husband and I disagree about something that involves spending time or money which is not in the normal realm of our lives. Saying “deja de ser pobre” is a cue for us to lighten up and try to see the world from the other’s eyes.
A look at the past 50 years in Spain makes it easy to see why it is possible for Spaniards to have the values they do about the importance of their health, their family and the food they eat and why a good many of the standard Spanish meals are simple, meatless meals based on eggs, vegetables, pasta and olive oil.
In the fifties the affluent society was very long way off
It is striking to think in 2011, Spaniards born at the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 will begin to have lived more years after Franco than during Franco. The Spanish Baby Boomers were born a little earlier than in Europe and North America. “Their war” ended in 1939 rather than 1945.
My husband’s parents, Antonio and Maria, were small children when the Spanish Civil war broke out in 1936. My father-in-law Antonio was born in 1932. He tells the story of how we wandered off and got lost in town on the day the Franco sympathizers took over his town. His parents spent the day frantically looking for him, only to find him many hours later sleeping at the police station. Antonio became a shepherd at the ripe old age of 7. He earned a penny a day as well as some milk that was reserved for his younger siblings and all the figs and cactus pears he could eat on the property where the sheep grazed.
Maria was 2 when the war broke out. She did not have much of a childhood, having had to enter the service of a family as a maid when she was 11 years old in 1945. That was six years into the Franco dictatorship. She speaks about the fact that during the years she did go to school, she was forced to look on as the daughters of wealthy families tucked into a lunch that would have been enough food to feed her whole family. A very good student of mathematics, she went to school all of 6 years.
When Maria reminisces about the late fifties, more than 15 years after the end of the Spanish Civil War, she describes a meager family supper in which desert for 10 was two oranges. She tells that the foreman of the almond factory where she worked used to weigh the female workers when they came in and out of the factory to make sure they were not carrying out any almonds (be it in their clothes or their stomachs).
My parents-in-law are not typical of all the Spaniards who grew up during and after the war – about 60% of the population lived better than they did but the other 40% lived as they did or worse. They were hungry years for many people.
While folks in the US were learning that the atom is their friend, and building the postwar dream, the 50’s were still bad years for Spaniards. Franco consolidated his position as a friendly alternative to the Communist threat in Europe, but his economic and social policies were closer to the defeated fascist regimes than to the Free West. The economy, however, started to change, and fast, in the 1960s.
Spain got into gear in the sixties, there was some improvement in life day to day
In the 60’s, when Americans were learning to love Cheese Whiz, Miracle Whip, Corn Flakes, Butterball Turkeys and Big Macs, the GDP per capita in Spain was still a fraction of the US’s. Branding of food products was not a strong suit of the Spanish food industry. Rather, the industry was grappling with the basics of undercapitalization for production and inadequate roads and delivery infrastructure for distribution. Where there were food brands, they were often regional and were usually associated with basics: packaged dry goods, dairy products, soft drinks, flour, legumes and rice.
The economic growth of the 60s in Spain was the product of economic liberalization recommended in 1959 by the World Bank. The liberalization program had three planks: foreign investment, tourism, and the remittances from migrant workers (mostly in Europe). For the first time, Spaniards could dream of buying a motorized vehicle. Often the first purchase was a Vespa or Lambretta scooter where families of up to five managed to travel using a combination of acrobatic techniques as well as blind faith in the Virgin’s protection.
According to eye witnesses, the five-people-on-a-Vespa technique is as follows:
- father driving
- Oldest child standing on the scooter platform;
- Second child squeezed behind dad,
- Mother sitting side-saddle behind the second child, legs pressed tight together
- Smallest child in the mothers arms
By the end of the decade, SEAT 600 cars, the local version of the tiny Italian FIAT 500, were taking families of seven or eight for long trips. Sounds a lot like my grand-father’s Buick, no?
My husband tells stories of 90 mile, hot, dusty journey in a SEAT 600 from his town and to attend a funeral in Granada. The trip took 5 hours (the train journey was 6 hours. His sister, his mother and grand-mother never were never good travelers, and they were true to form that day as well. The same journey now takes 1 and a half hour.
Something called “Donut” started to be advertised on Spanish TV (on the single government-owned channel), sometimes advertised next to American brands of toothpaste. The Donut brand still exists in Spain today. It is a widely recognized brand – something like Wonder Bread is to North Americans. Spanish Donuts remind me of the donuts my grand-mother used to buy from the grocery store in the seventies– they were covered in icing sugar and used to stick to the roof of my mouth.
In the 60’s Spaniards were becoming consumers, and even spending money on local tourism. For the fist time, the middle class started to dream of purchasing a small second apartment near a Mediterranean beach. Spaniards discussed these potential purchases while washing the dishes in the case of women, and after watching the soccer match in the case of men.
While Northern Europe was experiencing the radical protests of 1968, many Spanish women covered up from their knees to their necks at the beach, if they ventured to the beach at all. Their husbands marveled at what the tourists’ husbands allowed the foreign ladies to wear in public. In 1968, the Franco dictatorship was in full force in Spain as it had been since 1939. There were rumblings of change however, in the form of some student strikes and the beginning of an organized labor movement. However, in the midst of the dictatorship, many people migrated to the cities and worked very long hours to earn enough to enjoy, for the first time in their lives, some basic leisure. They also worked to offer their children the education they did not have themselves.
Spaniards left Spain in droves to make ends meet in the 60’s and 70’s
While re-invigorated Europe took a new course in the early seventies, from 1969 to 1975, Spain was still in many aspects rural and quite poor. At that time cars per capita were less than one quarter of France’s or Germany’s and less than 10% of the US’s. In fact, many Spaniards had to emigrate to work in the German and French car plants in order to be able to afford to raise their children let alone buy a car. During the 60’s and early 70’s, 2 million Spaniards left to work in foreign industrial factories.
However, there was never the massive emigration to North America as was the case from Italy and Portugal because Spanish immigrants traditionally went to South America, primarily Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba. By the 60’s, the European industrial economy was growing strong and there was a demand for factory labor. Spaniards did not need to venture to South America and many of them returned to their hometowns after retirement from the French and German auto plants. In almost every street there was a family with a father or with both parents in Germany, France or Switzerland, who came once a year –often for the town holiday- but who sent money every month. Grand parents, of course, filled the gap left by those who went to work.
Food under the Franco dictatorship was basic to say the least
At the same time, when American were driving their V8 to shopping malls, and watching the moon-walk, the ordinary Spaniards who did not emigrate, got by.
They walked daily to buy groceries from Mom and Pop stores that had no refrigeration. A friend ran who one of these dry grocery stores, tells of selling goods in very small quantities – half a quart of milk, a quarter pound or margarine, a half pound of semolina. That’s all people could afford and they spent close 50% of their household income on food, compared to 22% today. People survived from one day to the next.
As recently as the late 50’s and early 60’s, food was local and Spanish meals were most often based on non-perishable staples such as legumes, rice and flour as well as eggs, salted fish and pork. Meat and fish consumption was 30% less than today. People filled up on cheaper food stuffs like cereals, olive oil and eggs, eating three times more of these than today.
The post war generation who were kids during the hungry 40s and the very lean 50s paid the price of having been born at the wrong time. Spaniards between the ages of 45 and 65, who grew up in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s are on average 4 inches shorter than Spaniards between the ages of 15 and 29. The younger generation of men who grew up in the good times since 1977, is half an inch taller than the European average of 5 feet 10 inches; so much for my view of Spaniards as short and swarthy.
The advent of democracy in 1977 brought massive change to Spain
Franco died in 1975. Two years later elections were held and after a 41 year hiatus, democracy was restored. It was a bad time to start off a democracy with the global energy crisis. Times in the late seventies were difficult. Then in the 80’s Spain began to build the infrastructure that most European countries had put in place in the 50’s and 60’s. Investments were made in hospitals; highways, reliable power grids, and rail infrastructure and water purification. The GDP per capita grew steadily in the 80’s although Spanish GDP per capita was still well below the rest of Europe’s. Spanish households were beginning to feel wealthier but there was still a way to go before Spaniards felt they were close to attaining the living standards of their neighbors. Spanish workers continue to have work longer hours than the European average. Our view of Spain as a rather laid back place may have more to do with perceptions of Spain as a sun destination.
As well as economic growth, the 80’s were a period of tremendous social change in Spain. Women entered the work force en masse to the point where in 2002, 48% of women were participating in the work force (up from 32% in 1995), and a figure which is quickly approaching the European average of 57%. Today in Spanish universities, women are the majority of students, as well as the majority of graduating lawyers and doctors. The average number of children born to women in Spain has declined steeply to the point where Spain’s fertility rate today is 1.25, the lowest of any European country. The change to Spanish society during the last 30 years was greater and far quicker than it was in the rest of Europe.
Surprisingly, Spaniards who lived through the hardship during and after the Civil War live long and healthy lives
One might be forgiven for thinking that the combination of hardship in the 40’s and 50’s, very modest incomes and spending on healthcare in the 60’s and 70’s (public healthcare was instituted in the 50’s in Spain but received only minimal funding until the 80’s), and longer than average working hours would have had a negative impact on the health and life expectancy of Spaniards.
That’s what I thought and I was wrong. Spanish women have among the longest life expectancies in Europe at 83.7 years, compared to almost 84.3 for the long living Japanese women . Spanish men, can also expect to live long lives with average life expectancy of close to 77.6 which is well above the European average despite the fact that 41% of Spanish men smoke.
What’s more Spaniards can expect to live longer disability free lives. Spanish women can expect to live 20 healthy years after their 60th birthday, which is the fourth longest disability free life expectancy in the world after Japan, Switzerland and France where health care spending per capita is considerably higher than in Spain. For Spanish men, their disability free life expectancy is 16.4 years after 60, only one year less than the long living healthy Japanese.
It must be said however, that Spaniards are not all thin. The title of this book is a tongue in cheek jibe at what seems an increasing obsession with body weight and image. As we saw earlier, about half of Spanish adults do not fret at all about weight and the majority of men and women do not believe in diets. About 12% of Spanish men are obese, a figure, so to speak which is comparable with Frances . Fifteen percent of Spanish women are obese which is slightly higher than Austria. Purely anecdotally, I have noticed that on the beach, waistlines have gotten bigger of the last 10 years. However, what may keep Spaniards healthier is the fact that they walk a great deal.
There are however, signs that the new Spanish wealthy society is posing a risk to health especially among Spanish children and teenagers. There are some troubling findings in a recent report by the European Association for the Study of Obesity. The International Obesity Task Force Child Obesity working group went into the field and conducted surveys of a number of countries. They found that in Spain, 10% of children between the ages of 7 and 11, and 6% of teenagers are obese. They also found that 23% of children and 12% of teenagers are overweight. Spanish children especially are part of a trend among Mediterranean countries toward overweight children. Italy’s figures were slightly lower than Spain’s for children and were slightly higher for teenagers.
As a mother of three children who spends time in Spain, two things strike me as contributors to these problems. First Spanish kids used to spend hours playing outside after school. This is less and less the case. Where there are kids with time on their hands, there are sedentary alternatives like video games. Second, Spanish kids are indulged by their parents. They are most often only children and children rule Mediterranean households. So even though a Spanish mother’s nightmare is a child who is continually snacking, it is quite possible that some parents are holding less fast to than they would like to their principles about what to eat and when.
By the numbers…
21.7, the number of healthy years the average Japanese woman lives after 60
20.4, the number of healthy years the average Swiss woman lives after 60
20.3, the number of healthy years the average French woman lives after 60
19.9, the number of healthy years the average Spanish woman lives after 60
77%, 60%, 48%, Spanish per capita government and private spending on healthcare as a % of Japanese, French and Swiss spending respectively
34%, Spanish GDP per capita as a percent of US GDP per capita in 1938
35%, Spanish GDP per capita as a percent of US GDP per capita in 1950
33%, Spanish GDP per capita as a percent of US GDP per capita in 1960
45%, Spanish GDP per capita as a percent of US GDP per capita in 1970
56%, Spanish GDP per capita as a percent of US GDP per capita in 1980
55%, Spanish GDP per capita as a percent of US GDP per capita in 2000
4, the number of inches less height of the average Spaniards between the ages of 45 and 65 compared to the average Spaniards between the ages of 15 and 29
.5, the inches taller than average Spaniards between the ages of 15 and 29 are compared to their European peers
17%, the likely amount by which the Spanish economy shrank from 1945 to 1950
2,000,000, the number of Spaniards who immigrated to Europe to work in factories in the 60’s
50%, the percent of household budget Spaniards spent on food in the 60’s
23%, the percent of household budget Spaniards spent on food in 2003