Could you cope if your house halved in value and seven months of your income went towards tax? Three women just like you explain the tough truth about life in the Eurozone.

Think Spain and your mind meanders back to family holidays, misspent teenage weekends in Ibiza and pans of paella sluiced down with bottles of Rioja. What is difficult to imagine is a country – the Eurozone’s fourth largest in both size and economy – crippled with mind-twisting debt, 25% unemployment and its people on the edge of full-scale revolt.

Last month, prime minister Mariano Rajoy performed a spectacular policy U-turn and introduced €65bn of cuts just seven months after coming into power on the back of an anti-austerity message. In response, protestors filled the streets of Madrid only to be met with rubber bullets. But as prices shoot skywards, quality of life plummets. Even the occasional luxuries working women in Britain can still run to – manicures, meals out, the odd mini-break – are beyond most women in Spain.

“What upsets me most is the mood of the population,” explains Helena Rodríguez, 32, a web manager from Madrid who now checks the price of everything she buys, and only shops in H&M and Primark. “Spain has always been such a positive country, but now it feels like we’re drowning in tears as we watch a political class full of thieves help the banks and the rich, but ignore the needs of everyday people.”

And those needs are basic. Food prices have rocketed. “It was recently announced that 20% of Spanish children suffer from malnutrition, which gives you an idea of the impact,” says Rodríguez. “It’s a complete embarrassment – the Spanish Euro crisis has changed me from someone proud of my country to someone who’s ashamed.”

Yet it’s not just Spain under a fiscal cosh. Greece, Ireland and Portugal have had to be bailed out to avoid defaulting on their spiralling debts. Almost a quarter of all Greeks are out of work and for under 25s, the figure is over 50%. Ireland’s unemployment has risen to its highest rate since the crisis began, while Portugal’s PM took the controversial step of urging unemployed youth to seek work in Portuguese-speaking countries such as Brazil or Angola.

The UK has been told to expect 10 more years of austerity. So what should we be steeled for? Stylist spoke to women from the Eurozone battling the deepest global recession of a generation…

Life for women in the Eurozone