One of the cultural experiences most felt by any traveler is the difference in economy and money. Spain, along with 15 other nations, adopted the Euro in January 2002 to replace its previous national currency, the peseta. As a visitor to the nation, one of the first things that I have learned to pay closer attention to is the rate of exchange between the dollar and the euro. This is first interesting, because while I have heard mini news clips about the strength of the dollar, I have rarely given it the attention that I am developing now. In the past week, in fact, the dollar saw its strongest day since I have been studying in Spain and also its lowest.
Spain was actually one of the nations which most supported the change to a universal European currency. In the 90's, Spain maintained a GDP growth of over 3% average per year, and often above that. This contrasted greatly with other European nations, like Germany and France, which traditionally had much larger and stronger economies, but experienced near zero growths. The strength of Spain's economy in the last 15 year's according to many economists has legitimized them as member of the European Union (EU) and makes them now the fifth largest economy in the EU and the eighth largest in the world. In my research of the Spanish economy I was also interested to learn that Spain was only second to France in terms of reducing income levels between different social classes in Spain in the last 20 years. This of course is also a reflection and a turn from the reign of Franco and the years of hunger, portrayed in the books of Spanish literature, when the social classes experienced large gaps. Also a change from the Catholic, Franco era, in the 1970's women in the workforce in Spain was equal to the amount of women working in other European nations in the 1930's. Today, with help of the political changes and the shift to the Euro, Spain matches the EU average of women in the workforce. While their are some disadvantages, including intra-european trade, it seems that the change to the euro has been positive for Spain.