Rural sustainability, inter-generational support and mobility

Abstract

The issue of the resilience of rural areas has again emerged as a result of the economic recession, particularly in the countries of Southern Europe, which have been especially hard hit by cuts in the provision of services. In this paper we focus on the Spanish case to explore the role that mobility plays in the central age groups of the age pyramid in rural sustainability. Based on the results obtained from a representative survey of the population and in-depth interviews carried out between 2008 and 2012, we show how demographic composition and mobility strategies are two central factors in considering the future of rural areas. Their medium and long-term effects have been considered separately, but in this article, their inter-relationship is analysed in the context of the sustainability of Spanish rurality. The conclusions point to the dual effect of mobility: on the one hand, it regulates the actual subsistence of rural populations to the point of making them highly dependent on cars; on the other hand, it transmits social inequalities in the social structure, such as those related to gender.