Thursday on Worldview:

Spain has struggled to avoid a financial bailout amid deeply troubling financial figures. Unemployment has hit nearly 25 percent, with that number double for Spanish youth. The government has slashed salaries for public employees and cut unemployment benefits. Pensions are about the only entitlement that haven’t been cut, and now many families are relying on elderly pensioners to see them through the crisis.

Spanish family networks have always been important, but they’ve become the main lifeline for many families hit hard by the country’s economic crisis. Ted Fishman, author of Shock of Gray, tells us how Spain’s aging population is coping with its unexpected new responsibilities. 

Then, Regina Grafe joins Worldview from Madrid to examine the events that lead Spain to this point. Grafe is an economic historian of early modern Spain and the Atlantic World and the Director of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Northwestern University.

And in our Global Activism segment, Jane Roberts of 34 Million Friends tell us how she thinks the Gates Foundation’s funding for family planning will impact women’s health and gender equality around the globe.