Economic crisis taking its toll on population size

After surging in the past decade due to a flood of immigrants attracted by rapid economic expansion fueled mainly by a massive property boom, Spain's population is set to fall by half a million in the next 10 years as emigration sparked by the economic crisis after the bubble burst increases, and as the birth rate remains low.

According to figures released Friday by the National Statistics Institute (INE), if current demographic trends persist, Spain's population will shrink to 45.6 million in 2021 from 46.1 million at present. It had increased by 15 percent in the decade through to 2010 mainly as a result of an influx of foreigners.

Spaniards, particularly young people, almost half of whom are unemployed, are increasingly moving abroad to seek work as the domestic economy struggles to recover from its worst recession in living memory. One out of five people are out of a job in Spain, more than double the average rate in the European Union.

The INE predicted that just under a million people are expected to leave Spain in the period 2011-2020. "What we are seeing through 2011 is that for the first time since the phenomenon of immigration began in force in Spain [...] is that rather than immigrants stopping coming, many more are leaving," INE official Miguel Ángel Martínez told state radio station RNE. "All of us know the strong relation that exists between migratory movement and the economic situation."

The government has toughened immigration laws and is encouraging foreign workers who are out of a job to return home.

The expected fall in the birth rate is in part due to a drop in the number of women of child-bearing age. The INE predicted 396,417 births in 2020, a fall of 18.1 percent compared with 2010. "In Spain in the 1980s there was a big birth-rate crisis and very few girls were born," Martínez said.

The INE also said that for the first time in ages, the number of deaths in 2019 will exceed the number of births. Within the next decade Spain will have 1.4 million people over the age of 64, 17.8 percent more than at present.