The Demographic Sustainability of Empty Spain

Abstract

On 1 January 2016, 60 per cent of Spanish municipalities had fewer than 1,001 inhabitants, occupied 40% of the country’s surface and concentrated barely 3.1% of the population. Eurostat data situate 19 Spanish provinces among the least dense of the European Union in 2015. This notable imbalance between population and territory, the basic problem of a vast area in the north and centre of the Iberian peninsula, is characterized by ageing, a relative scarcity of women because of large-scale differential emigration based on gender, and transitory immigration that has been unable to compensate for the demographic outflow which has affected these places since the middle of the twentieth century. The demographic sustainability of this heterogeneous set of municipalities is hanging in the balance. This situation constitutes a major challenge and, moreover, the great diversity of these towns should be borne in mind when it comes to applying public policies.