SpainSpain ended 2024 with a fertility rate of 1.1 children per woman, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE), marking the lowest fertility rate in Europe and among the lowest globally. Despite two decades of family-friendly policies aimed at increasing birth rates, such as baby checks, extended parental leave, and regional subsidies, the results have been mixed. Meanwhile, the implementation of continuous school days, which compresses the school day between 9:00 AM and 2:00 PM, has quietly expanded across Spain over time. This policy originated from a labor union dispute in Canary Islands in the late 1980s and gradually replaced the split-day model, where students stayed until 4:00 PM or 4:30 PM with lunch in between. The shift has had significant implications for families, effectively reducing access to free public childcare during working hours. A new study published by Álvaro Muñoz-Fernández in the *Journal of Policy Analysis and Management* examines this change as an implicit subsidy for child care and provides the first estimate of its impact on fertility rates in regions where the continuous school day was most widely adopted in recent years.
Bias read (Center): The article presents a balanced discussion of the policy changes and their effects on fertility rates without overtly favoring any political perspective. It includes academic research and statistical data while explaining both the policy background and its potential impacts on families.
