Fertility as a variable for tackling the demographic challenge, is having children in Spain an unfulfilled desire?

In this article, we examine the maternity gap for the case of Spain. This is a phenomenon of great social and economic relevance that presents challenges for analysis, including adequate delimitation of the concept and the acquisition of quality quantitative data that enables dependable empirical measurement. We have drawn data from the three waves of the Fertility Survey conducted by Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (1985, 1999, and 2018) and find that, while the desire for maternity in Spain is not relatively low, the number of actual births is significantly lower. First, we propose alternative theoretical approaches that contribute to a comprehensive vision of this complex phenomenon. Next, we analyze the perceived barriers to maternity in Spain for each period, identifying the factors that influence them. Results indicate that women with higher levels of education are associated with larger gaps between the numbers of children desired and actual children, and that the maintenance of stable relationships and access to good health services contribute to reductions in the maternity gap. Finally, in a differentiated analysis for men and women using data collected in the 2018 wave, we find that the main results are similar for the two sexes, although distinct profiles do emerge depending on the professional status of a woman (when unemployed or inactive) and with respect to the importance of declared reasons for not having children, such as work and reconciliation with maternity (by women) and lacking a suitable partner (by men).