66.6% of the 36,170,300 people aged between 18 and 74 in 2025 had responsibilities to care for children or grandchildren (their own or their partner's, under 15 years of age, and who lived in the home or outside of it) or for relatives (aged 15 or over, including the partner, who had a disability, were ill or were elderly).
20.5% cared only for children under 15 years of age, 8.1% only for dependent relatives, 3.0% only for grandchildren under 15 years of age, and 1.9% had responsibility for the care of children or grandchildren and also for at least one relative.
By sex, the percentage of people responsible for caring for someone was higher in women (36.2%, compared to 30.6% for men). This difference was more pronounced in the case of people who had care responsibilities for children or grandchildren and, in addition, of some relative or partner (2.3% women, compared to 1.5% men), and even more so in the care of grandchildren (3.8%, compared to 2.1%).
Taking into account the relationship with the activity, the percentage of women with care responsibilities was higher than that of men in all cases. Among those employed, 35.6% were men compared to 38.1% of women. Among the unemployed, 25.2% are men compared to 39.5% of women. And in the inactive population, 19.8% of men versus 32.3% of women.
Percentage
(1) Care may consist of looking after own or partner’s children or grandchildren under 15 years of age, or of a partner or dependent relatives aged 15 or over.
18.2% of people with responsibility for the care of their own or their partner’s children used professional services for all of their children. 81.8% did not use them for any of them or only for some of them.
Regarding the relationship with activity, the percentage of people who used care services for all their children reached 19.6% among the employed and decreased to 10.6% among the inactive.
For people who did not use these services, the main reason was the preference to arrange care alone or with their partner (54.2%), followed by help from grandparents, other relatives or friends (18.6%), the ability of children to take care of themselves (13.6%) and the price of the services (7.7%).
In all situations related to economic activity, the highest percentages were in the preference to organise childcare themselves, especially among the inactive (65.1%).
Percentage
24.0% of those employed with responsibility for the care of family members or partners did so between five and 10 hours per week. 18.3% did it for 40 hours or more.
By sex, the percentage of men was higher than that of women when care was provided for up to 10 hours per week. From that number onwards the order was reversed, reaching its greatest difference in the 40 hours or more segment (15.7% in men and 20.5% in women).
By professional status, it was found that the interval of fewer hours contained a higher percentage of self-employed workers than that of salaried workers (15.3% and 12.6%, respectively). Conversely, in the one with more hours, the percentage of salaried workers was higher (19.0%, compared to 14.2%).
Percentage
Three out of four employed people (75.2%) who had some care responsibility did not make any job changes to balance their work and family life. 67.7% did not find any special difficulties at work in balancing their work and family life.
9.6% adapted their working day without needing to adjust the number of hours. And 4.4% reduced working time (going from full-time to part-time, working fewer hours, etc.).
The percentage of women who did not make any changes to facilitate work-life balance was lower than that of men (67.9%, compared to 82.1%). Regarding the main change made, the biggest difference was in the reduction of working time (8.3% for women, compared to 0.8% for men).
The economic sector with the highest percentage of men who made a change at work to achieve a work-life balance was in Services (19.2%), while the one with the lowest percentage was Construction (12.5%). In the case of women, Construction had the highest percentage (40.1%) and Agriculture the smallest (22.4%).
By type of employee, the main change at work in order to balance work and family life, both for those in the public and private sectors, was to adapt the working day without needing to change the number of hours (8.9% in the public sector and 8.4% in the private sector).
Percentage
By sector, the main difficulty for having a work-life balance in Agriculture and Construction was the long working day (11.2% and 12.7%, respectively), while in Industry and Services were unpredictable or difficult working hours (10.9% and 11.2%, respectively).
Due to professional circumstances, the long working day was the main characteristic that made it difficult to balance work and family life for 9.6% of private sector employees and 4.6% of public sector employees.
Percentage
52.5% of people aged 18 to 54 had not raised any children under the age of 15, 18.2% had raised one, 20.8% had raised two, and 8.2% had raised three or more.
40.9% of people who had raised a child under 15 years of age did not use any birth leave (directly after birth) or leave of absence for their care. 52.4% only used the birth leave, 0.8% only used a leave of absence and 4.0% used both.
By sex, the percentage of men who only used leave for birth was higher than that of women (56.4%, compared to 49.0%). Conversely, the use of both types of permit was higher for women (6.8%, compared to 0.8% for men).
Percentage
(1) The period from the start of the work or the time that goes by during it is taken into account to calculate the leaves of absence, with the latter applying to those not currently working.
The data published today are final. All results of this operation are available on INEBase.
The 2025 module of the Economically Active Population Survey, carried out in collaboration with Eurostat (Statistical Office of the European Union), investigates people aged 18 to 74 with regard to their work-life balance.
The variables in this module have been established according to the Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/2312 of 25 November 2022 and are intended to provide coordinated information on this issue at the European level. The Commission has co-financed the implementation costs of this module.
The module questions were posed to people from the EAPS subsample, found in sixth interview that in the first two quarters of the year includes the additional subsample collected by the Galician Institute of Statistics in Galicia.
For more information, both the module's methodology and the EPA's standardised methodological report, which is the module's base survey, may be consulted for more information.
INE statistics are produced in accordance with the Code of Good Practice for European Statistics. More information on Quality at INE and the Code of Best Practices.
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