Boomers locked up the housing market against their own children

Boomers: the generation that locked the market before their children could enter

Five car industry workers from Valladolid, all born in 1948. Each of them owned one flat, none more. A modest car, half their salary going on the mortgage and little else. That picture helps to refute the idea that boomers had everything handed to them, while at the same time raising the question: did they design a system to protect themselves, or did they inherit a country still waiting to be built?

The harshest thesis holds that democracy, education and the law are the work of a generation whose priority was making sure their children could never take their jobs away. The evidence cited: early retirement at 50 with just 15 years of contributions, maximum pensions, and two flats rented out to young graduates with degrees, languages and master's degrees who still can't make ends meet.

Mechanism or context: what locked the game

The rebuttal is simple: in the 1970s there was no need to protect yourself, because Spain was still a country to be built. Knowing how to read and write was enough to become a managing director. The university entrance exam (selectividad) already existed in 1990 and worked for any university. In between lies the motto of the clash: you leave home educated, not in tears.

The handover that comes too late: pensions and inheritance

The demographic warning is the most uncomfortable one: Spain's boomer generation ends around 1978, and within ten years there will not be enough workers paying in to fund their pensions. No conspiracy needed: the population pyramid is upside down.

The debate remains open. The protection they enjoyed was also the product of an economy with no competition and everything still to be done. The unsettling fact is that this system has failed to reproduce that upward mobility for the next generation. It wasn't design, but it wasn't merit either.