The Community of Madrid is a place of deep contrasts. On the one hand, it is the autonomous community with the highest per capita income in all of Spain, above the Basque Country, Navarra, and by a wide margin with Catalonia. It also shows great strength, attracting international capital and residents with great purchasing power. According to AIREF data, the economy of the Community of Madrid has been growing above the Spanish average uninterruptedly since the first quarter of 2022.
It should also be noted that the ability to attract tourists reached historic highs last year, even exceeding pre-pandemic levels. The volume of tourism in 2023 was a third higher than in 2022 and this rate of increase is much higher than that of Autonomous Communities such as Andalusia, the Balearic Islands, or Catalonia, some of the most successful in this sector. In a similar sense, the population of the city of Madrid has increased by more than 100 thousand people during the year 2023, an increase of almost 4%. At the same time, new private universities open every so often in the region.
On the other hand, the region is exposed to significant tensions. According to sources from the Ministry of Health mentioned in an article in this medium from a few months ago, the number of people on the health waiting list has increased by almost half a million since 2021, in particular the number of people waiting for appointments with a primary doctor. or specialist. For its part, the schooling rate in public centers is the lowest in the country, only 55%, while schooling in pure private centers is the highest (15%), according to data from the Ministry of Education discussed here. The cost of housing is another factor that introduces social tensions and growing inequality problems: According to the Idealista portal, the average price per square meter of housing for sale has increased by 700 euros in just one year. That is, a 100 m2 apartment has increased its price, on average, by 70,000 euros in just 12 months. In terms of rent, the price per square meter has increased by 15% in that same period.
But what do residents in Madrid think? What perception do they have of the situation? To begin to answer this question we can go to the European Quality of Government study. This is a study managed by the Quality of Government Institute at the University of Gothenburg. This study conducts a survey distributed to representative samples of residents from all regions of the 27 EU countries, and does so approximately every 3-4 years. In the Community of Madrid, the number of people interviewed is at least 600 in each of the study rounds. The survey seeks to capture citizens’ perceptions and experiences regarding quality, impartiality and corruption in three key areas: healthcare, education, and citizen security. For each of the dimensions – quality, impartiality and corruption – the study provides an index, where 0 indicates the European average and positive values indicate better perceptions. Likewise, it provides a global index of perceived government quality.
He graph 1 shows the evolution of the global index of perceived government quality among residents of Madrid in comparison with the rest of the autonomous communities in the period 2010-2024. As can be seen on the right of the graph, according to the most recent study (from early 2024), the perception of quality of government in the Community of Madrid is the second highest in all of Spain, only behind Cantabria. The value of the global quality index is also above 0, which implies that it is above the average of the 27 EU countries. In terms of trend, the global index has improved substantially between 2021 and 2024. If in 2021 (or in 2017), the Community of Madrid was below the European average, it is now among the 40% of regions with the best score.
How is this global perception of quality of government expressed in the more specific dimensions contemplated by the study, that is, impartiality, corruption, and quality of services? He graph 2 provides answers to that question. Firstly, it shows how perception in the Community of Madrid has clearly improved between 2021 and 2024 for all three dimensions. This is particularly true in relation to perceived impartiality and corruption. Indeed, the opinions in the most recent study are much more positive than in those of 2021 and 2017. Even the perception of quality of services, which were already relatively positive in previous studies, has improved in the latest measurement.
How can we explain these patterns? It is not easy to do this without a very fine analysis of the data and without conducting qualitative interviews, which exceeds the purpose of this post. However, it is possible to point out some issues. It is important to specify that the perceptions of Madrid citizens about impartiality and corruption are measured before scandals such as that of Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s partner or the Koldo case broke out, both related – at least in part – to the acquisition of medical supplies. during the pandemic.
Secondly, it is worth examining to what extent perceptions of service quality are similar whether it is health, education, or citizen security. I address this in the following graph 3. The graph shows the average score given among the residents of each autonomous community to health, education and police services. The minimum score is 1 and the maximum is 10. As can be seen in the graph, those surveyed in Madrid have a very positive opinion of the quality of the police service and also of the health situation, clearly above the most of the rest of the autonomous communities. This does not occur equally with respect to education, where the average score is lower, although even in this case it is not below the median of the communities. We can thus conclude that, in general, there is a moderate to high degree of satisfaction with the quality of health, safety and education services.
Thus, despite the fact that there are negative indicators regarding public education and public health services in the Community of Madrid, citizens continue to have a positive opinion about the situation of these services – at least on average. Which undoubtedly helps explain why the Popular Party has been leading regional governments for three decades now.
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