Europe’s Austerity Push Breaks Mother’s Promise of Social Model

Ester Artells’s mother told her that if she worked hard she would go a long way.

Growing up in Reus in northern Spain, Artells understood that a good education would give her the career and lifestyle her mother was denied by the military regime of General Francisco Franco. The economic slump has forced the 35-year-old biologist to move to France, putting a painful twist on the parental advice she received in what’s now the heartland of European unemployment.