The old maxim that steady employment and an average salary would guarantee you access to a decent home for starting a family is now faltering under the weight of a runaway housing market. For more than a decade, house prices have risen far faster than household incomes, widening a gap that leaves an increasing number of people shut out of the market.

As a result, more than 70% of the European population lives in regions where an average wage is not enough to buy a home larger than 75 square meters (807 square feet), even with a 30-year mortgage. That is one of the main findings of a study published Thursday in the open-access publication Journal of Maps by Franziska Sielker and Selim Banabak, researchers at the Vienna University of Technology.

The researchers’ diagnosis, based on an analysis of more than 22 million property listings across 31 European countries, paints a continent with a severe housing crisis, where buying a home has ceased to be a natural step and has become an increasingly difficult goal to reach. The 75-square-meter threshold is not arbitrary: it roughly corresponds to the standard reference size for a two-bedroom family home. The fact that 72% of Europeans find it impossible to buy a dwelling exceeding that size reveals how weakened the middle class’s ability to become homeowners has become.

The study offers a comparative snapshot at the European scale, without entering into precise national rankings. Despite this, Spain is one of the examples the researchers cite as having the greatest territorial inequality. That fracture, which they describe as the existence of a “wide range of affordability levels” within the country, places Madrid as the main hot spot for prices, affecting all neighboring areas. The other most troubled areas are the coastal zones, where pressure from tourism and second homes push prices far above local incomes. The touristification effect also affects France, Portugal, Greece and Croatia.

The situation is particularly suffocating in Europe’s large cities. Sixty percent of the urban population lives in areas where the average wage does not even allow the purchase of a 50-square-meter home—the size of a one-bedroom or studio apartment—with a standard mortgage. Across Europe as a whole, 44% of all Europeans reside in areas with this level of extreme unaffordability. In these cities, market prices force a large share of the population to take on a financial burden above what economic consensus considers healthy, which considers spending more than one-third of a family’s income on housing as financially unsound. At the other end of the scale is just 5% of the European population, living in the most affordable areas. In those markets, property costs are low enough that one can opt for a larger dwelling without mortgage payments exceeding that threshold.

But even these calculations may present a rosier picture than the reality. The reason is that the researchers used regional average wages as the reference for measuring household purchasing power, as most analyses do. The problem is that wages are not evenly distributed, and it takes only a handful of very high earners to pull the average away from the majority’s situation. For that reason, they note, “it can be expected that more than half of the population earns below the reference income level.” In that sense, the analysts insist that “supporting income may be as important as moderating housing prices to achieve housing affordability.”

There is also another important issue when interpreting the figures. The study does not analyze what households that have already bought a home or that live in rental housing are actually paying; rather, it looks at the prices at which listed homes are offered on the current market. The data therefore show the conditions someone seeking a place now would face.

Impossible rents

The study uses the same calculation method to measure how far households can go in affording rent. And the result is as discouraging as it is for buying. Four in 10 people live in areas where renting a one-bedroom apartment or a 50-square-meter studio requires dedicating more than one-third of household income. The consequence is a double expulsion from the housing market. Purchase prices are too high and rents absorb an excessive share of income, making it nearly impossible to save the funds needed to move into ownership. For many households, especially younger people and migrants, renting ceases to be a transitional stage.

On this point the research shows a clear regional divide, although it does not detail the situation of each state. As a general rule in economies such as Germany, France or Austria, an average wage allows renting a larger dwelling than one could buy with the same income. But in southern countries the opposite happens. In Portugal and Italy, rents have risen so rapidly that, with the same salary, you can buy a house larger than the one you can rent. Spain shows a similar pattern. Pressure is concentrated in Madrid, the Mediterranean coast and the islands. In these areas the residential housing stock competes with short-term rentals and second homes.

Another conclusion is that the housing pressure experienced by capitals such as Paris, Berlin or Madrid spreads to adjacent areas. The study stresses that there is a negative effect that extends to the peripheries and nearby municipalities of these cities, pushing up land costs in regions that once provided an escape route for lower-income families. Specifically, the paper states that “urban agglomerations tend to be hotspots of unaffordability, often showing clearly visible spillover effects into neighboring regions despite higher income levels generated in these areas.”

The countryside faces its own drama. Here the main barrier is not prices but the availability of a formal housing stock. The researchers found that more than a quarter (28%) of Europe’s rural population lives in a municipality without a formal rental market. They explain that in these peripheral regions “rental listings are simply not available, either because of a lack of supply or because distribution is limited to informal channels.”

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The midlife crisis has no proven biological basis and, in fact, some experts suggest it may be the one major crisis millennials manage to avoid. While getting older may be a universal experience, a full-blown existential crisis requires a fairly privileged starting point: a degree of financial, personal and family stability that allows people to devote time and resources to questioning their lives and, of course, reinventing them.

In the 1960s, psychoanalyst Elliott Jaques argued that, as we approach 40, we begin to confront our own mortality more consciously, a realization that can be accompanied by a profound sense of unease. For decades, that anxiety found expression, particularly among men and according to their means, in a series of recognizable gestures. At one end was the businessman who left his wife, started a relationship with a younger woman and bought a sports car; at the other, the forty-something who simply got a tattoo or dyed his hair platinum blond. These are different ways of dramatizing a break with one’s previous life and convincing oneself that there is still time to start over.

But things are changing. The new sports car is a high-end espresso machine. One social media user asks: “1980–1996 friends… how’s that midlife coffee crisis going?” Another says: “Having a coffee cabinet is the best kind of mid-life crisis. Because middle age is about brewing coffee in different ways yourself.”

Let’s not forget that Brad Pitt, David Beckham and George Clooney are among the stars who have become the new faces of coffee, including coffee pods. The fact that these products are promoted by middle-aged men suggests that some people are navigating their midlife crisis through caffeine rather than horsepower.

Of course, there is already a name for this phenomenon. Writing in Robb Report about the “obsessive, intensive and expensive” ways in which men indulge their passion for coffee, Mark Ellwood coins the term MAMIC, Middle-Aged Man Into Coffee. He also references the MAMIL, Middle-Aged Man in Lycra, the Lycra-clad middle-aged man who throws himself wholeheartedly into cycling.

“The car has become too obvious, a victim, so to speak, of its own clichéd status,” writes Max Scharnigg in the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. “In general, the car as a symbol of success now works only up to a point, whether it’s a Porsche or a Mercedes G-Class. Quite simply, it no longer says much about a man’s actual status when any youngster can show up driving an AMG with an enormous engine.”

The journalist reflects on how the affluent middle classes in Western countries now prefer subtler ways of displaying status. The symbols men use to assert themselves, both to themselves and to their peers, are no longer primarily meant to signal wealth or professional success. Instead, they signal expertise. Scharnigg concludes: “For several years now, there has been a curious category of objects that comes into its own in middle age: things that require specialist knowledge or reflect a personal passion. The new equation of social distinction in midlife could therefore be summed up as: time plus sacrifice equals status.”

Marcos Apud, a psychologist and expert in neuro-longevity, explains that men between the ages of 40 and 50 grew up watching their fathers accumulate possessions as status symbols, only to realize at some point that those things did not make them happier or healthier. “Middle age no longer asks, ‘What do I have?’ but ‘How do I feel?’ The expensive bicycle, the pizza oven, the specialty coffee machine… these are not indulgences; they are investments in personal experience, in rituals, in the quality of everyday life. Status has become internal. And, from a biological perspective, that makes perfect sense: by the time you reach 40, your body starts sending clear signals. If you don’t listen to them, you’ll pay the price,” he says.

“There is a genuine element of maturity to it,” he adds. “Today’s middle-aged man has more information than ever about what is good for his body and mind, and he is beginning to act accordingly. Going to the gym for health reasons, eating better, protecting personal time… that’s not vanity; it’s biological intelligence. Now, it would be naïve to deny that identity also plays a role. Appearance matters. But the difference from previous generations is that today that image is built from the inside out: first I take care of myself, and then it shows. Not the other way around,” he adds.

“A certain level of status gives people access to the financial resources that make a particular lifestyle possible,” says Antoni Bolinches, author of El síndrome de las supermujeres (The Superwoman Syndrome). “As men lose youth and gain maturity and status, they come to realize that happiness is possible at any stage of life, so long as they do not try to achieve it in the same way.”

According to the psychologist, the difference is also shaped by the social expectations placed on men and women. “Women receive the message that they must not age, which leads them to resist the passage of time and try to preserve their youth. Men, by contrast, grow up in a culture that presents aging as an opportunity to gain maturity and experience, allowing them to view getting older in a more positive light,” he says.

Chris Rovzar argues in Bloomberg that today’s middle-aged men face growing pressure to prolong their years of sexual attractiveness: “Americans have become obsessed with longevity, extending not just our lifespan but also our ‘healthspan’ — how long we live healthfully and happily. As a result, what middle age looks like has shifted too, thanks to everything from skincare to surgery. If we feel young and healthy on the inside, why wouldn’t we want to look that way on the outside? Now we’re all about extending our ‘hotspan.’”

Running, endless cycling sessions and, of course, Hyrox (something of a new-generation CrossFit), have become the new face of the midlife crisis, alongside cosmetic enhancements. “Hyrox over 4’s new dad life! The midlife crisis is now voluntary suffering running round in circles,” Hyrox coach Charlie Hendrie jokes on social media. “Still showing up. Still puttin in the work. No excuses.”

The problem arises when enthusiasm borders on obsession. Rafael San Román, author of ¿Qué le cuento a mi psicólogo? (What Do I Tell My Psychologist?), warns against taking self-care too far. “We often think that by doing a certain kind of exercise or eating in a certain way we’re looking after our health when, in reality, we’re not only gaining nothing from it but actually putting more pressure on ourselves. Many men in their forties and fifties may be trying to put their foot on the accelerator to preserve something that can’t be preserved, or to achieve for the first time something they’ve never had.”

The urge is understandable. “Perhaps we feel that the last trains are leaving the station when it comes to physical attractiveness, sexual appeal or certain life experiences. But instead of approaching it in a healthy, integrated and mature way, we try to compensate, in an unbalanced fashion, for shortcomings we perceive in earlier years. We become obsessed with last chances and lost youth. That’s when everything starts to unravel,” he warns.

“What women often seem able to do, namely confront a life crisis by drawing, at least initially, on their own resources, through self-reflection or by seeking therapy covered by health insurance, appears to be more difficult for men,” Scharnigg writes. “They need to make a considerable investment, perhaps to convince themselves they are really taking change seriously. Naturally, one doesn’t carry a pizza oven or an espresso machine under one’s arm, so they don’t work exactly as status symbols. They do work, however, as discreet badges for those in the know. ”

He continues: “What used to be that lakeside house on Lake Como, casually slipped into conversation, can now be an apparently offhand reference to the La Marzocco GS3 coffee machine you have at home: a kind of code recognizable only to fellow initiates.” The machine in question costs around €8,000 ($9,200). In this case, it is an exceedingly expensive example of an “if you know, you know” purchase, an inside joke for connoisseurs.

Perhaps the difference lies in how each generation experiences its midlife crisis. The previous one longed to recapture lost youth through conspicuous symbols of success and pleasure, while the current generation tries to turn consumption into expertise and use it to build a new version of itself. Because even when the money is spent on expensive pizza ovens or coffee machines, the purchase alone is not enough; what matters is mastering details such as roast profiles or bean varieties. In the past, people bought themselves a new life. Today, they acquire the tools to shape one. The goal is no longer to escape, but to become the kind of man who can better appreciate what he already has.

And however irritating some may find it to listen to a middle-aged man explain every step of his quest for the perfect cappuccino, that will always be more appealing, and certainly less ridiculous, than watching someone rev the engine of a sports car despite knowing that speed limits leave little room for showing off.

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Colombia continues to suffer the horrors of its many forms of violence. Nearly 10 years after the peace agreement with Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), the country is entering a new political chapter, with a new government that has closed the door on any further attempts at dialogue.

Against that backdrop, The Disasters of War, Francisco de Goya’s series of prints depicting the victims of conflict, will go on display from September 5 at Fragmentos, the counter-monument in Bogotá’s historic center. This important space of art and memory was built from the melted-down rifles of the now-defunct FARC and was conceived by Doris Salcedo, one of the most acclaimed Latin American visual artists in the world.

The exhibition brings together the complete series of 80 prints, produced between 1810 and 1820, in which Goya depicts the most devastating consequences of Napoleon’s invasion of Spain and the Peninsular War. The prints will be accompanied through January 17 of next year by seven poems from authors from different countries. Three collective actions focused on memory and remembrance will also take place over the coming months.

“Goya gives us a profound lesson about what war is. First, he strips it of any heroic character; second, he completely removes its nationalist dimension. He simply shows that war is pure brutality, that it is ignorance, and that all it brings is death,” Salcedo explains.

“He shows us rape, forced displacement, extrajudicial executions, torture, impalement, famine,” says the renowned Colombian artist. “He also shows the return of ignorance, because the Inquisition comes back; the violence that religion inflicts on ordinary people. We see all of these elements reflected absolutely in Colombia today,” she adds, speaking of the enduring relevance of The Disasters of War.

In her view, many of those scenes directly evoke the horrors of Colombia’s own armed conflict, including massacres such as El Salado, carried out by paramilitaries in 2000.

“Fragmentos represents a possibility for Colombians: the possibility of ending conflicts without killing one another, without bloodshed, without firing a single bullet. It represents the possibility of agreement, of dialogue, of talking things through, of understanding each other as rational human beings,” Salcedo reflects. “What we wanted to do by juxtaposing Fragmentos with this extraordinary work by Goya was to show Colombians the choices before us. We can either continue down the path of war, ignorance, religion, class divisions, everything that Goya shows us, or we can choose to build a social pact that leads us toward a peaceful and livable life in community for everyone.”

The exhibition arrives at a delicate moment. Abelardo de la Espriella has not yet completed his first month as Colombia’s president, but he is already promising a return to tough-on-crime security policies, ruling out any peace negotiations and sharply criticizing the institutions created under the accord with the FARC. He has also announced raids against undocumented migrants, spoken of “gutting” the left, though he later softened those remarks, and has repeatedly promoted a “cultural battle” that encompasses, among many other fronts, the Culture Ministry itself.

With its enormous symbolic weight, Fragmentos is itself a product of the peace agreement signed at the end of 2016. The Goya exhibition reaffirms the mission for which it was conceived: a space dedicated to the victims of the many forms of violence that have scarred Colombia. It was built from the melted metal of 37 tons of weapons surrendered by former FARC combatants. Its floor is made up of 1,300 metal plates hammered into shape by women who suffered sexual violence during the armed conflict. Housed in a colonial-era building just steps from the Casa de Nariño, the presidential palace, it was also envisioned as a museum that, for each year of the conflict and over a span of more than half a century, would host exhibitions by Colombian and international artists.

Salcedo has long been deeply committed to the peace accord, as well as to the Truth Commission, which delivered its final report in 2022. On more than one occasion, she has transformed Bogotá’s Plaza de Bolívar, the country’s political heart, which is only a few blocks from Fragmentos. There she installed Quebrantos, an intervention denouncing Colombian society’s growing indifference to the murder of social leaders. The square was also the site of Sumando ausencias, a vast white shroud stitched together with seven miles of thread by 10,000 people, giving voice to victims amid public calls to salvage the peace accord after the plebiscite in which the original agreement was narrowly rejected. Through her work, Salcedo has insisted time and again that Colombians are not condemned to yet another cycle of violence.

With a long list of international awards to her name, ranging from Spain’s Velázquez Prize to the Nasher Prize in the United States and the Nomura Award in Japan, Salcedo has achieved worldwide acclaim. Her work includes Shibboleth, the monumental crack that split the floor of London’s Tate Modern, exhibitions at New York’s MoMA and Paris’s Centre Pompidou, and Palimpsesto at Madrid’s Crystal Palace, a tribute to migrants who died at sea.

What also stands out in The Disasters of War, Salcedo notes, is the sheer number of images depicting migrants and forced displacement. Colombia is the principal destination for migrants fleeing neighboring Venezuela, and one of the poems accompanying the prints is Home by Warsan Shire. “You have to understand / that no one puts their children in a boat / unless the water is safer than the land,” it reads.

“These cultural battles are clearly driving us toward violence,” Salcedo laments. “I invite people to look carefully at the exhibition and reflect on each of these images, in which Goya shows us how distressing the return of the Inquisition was for him, which also investigated him personally, and how terrible it was for Spain. Let us hope that artists in Colombia do not meet the same fate. Let’s leave that in the past. Let us trust that there will be openness and an understanding that culture is about knowledge and an open-minded view of what a society is.”

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