Ageing and the care of elderly people in rural areas pose a challenge and an opportunity for change: with an ever older and increasingly male population, men will have to become more involved in the caregiver role, traditionally associated with women.

How has the economic crisis affected the productivity of universities? This article explains how public centres have reorganised their resources better than private centres and have shown greater efficiency.

A predominance of low-added value employment, lack of investment in innovation and precarious conditions for workers are distancing Spain from the knowledge economy. How can this situation be corrected?

Although the economic crisis has produced a generalised impoverishment of the different population segments in our country, the impact has been much greater among the poorer classes.

María Blasco, director of Spain's National Centre for Oncological Research,  shares with the  Social Observatory of "la Caixa" her view on how to extend healthy life years and the possible consequences in society.

Using a series of basic indicators and synthetic indicators on social, demographic and economic issues, this section of the Social Observatory of “la Caixa” offers a view in figures of the social reality of Spain within the European and international context.

What is the country’s socioeconomic situation? The Social Observatory of “la Caixa” includes in this section a series of indicators that offer a current-day snapshot of the relationship between the economy and people, analysing aspects such as the composition of households or labour market access in comparison with the societies of peer countries.

Where is education heading? In this section the Social Observatory of “la Caixa” presents a series of indicators are presented that are key to understanding the situation of education in our society. The majority have been built using data from international databases such as the European Social Survey (ESS) or the PISA Report, among others.

Research is a potential driving force for promoting economic growth and social welfare. What is the relative effort in research that different countries make? What economic activities are related to that research? This set of indicators provides an introduction to the history of research and innovation in various countries.

How is our country positioned in cultural questions? Understanding culture in its broadest form, the indicators presented by the Social Observatory of “la Caixa” in this section allow us to interpret how culture is interrelated, within a European context, with today’s social and economic reality.