|
Spain Migration
The poverty of rural Spain led to a marked shift in
population as hundreds of thousands of Spaniards moved out
of the
poor south and west in search of jobs and a better way of
life.
Between 1951 and 1981, more than 5 million Spaniards left
Poor
Spain, first for the prosperous economies of France and
the
Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), then for the
expanding industrial regions of Spain itself. Nearly 40
percent,
or 1.7 million, left Andalusia alone; another million left
Castilla y Leon; and slightly fewer than 1 million left
CastillaLa Mancha.
By 1970 migrants accounted for about 26 percent of the
population in Madrid, 23 percent in Barcelona, and more
than 30
percent in the booming Basque province of Alava. In the
years
after Franco's death, when the economies of some of the
industrial areas, especially the Basque region, began to
sour,
some tens of thousands of these people returned to their
provinces of origin. The majority of the migrants of the
1960s
and the 1970s, however, were husbands and wives who had
moved
their families with the idea of staying for a long period,
if not
permanently. Thus, the great bulk of the migrants stayed
on to
shape the culture and the politics of their adopted
regions. In
the long run, this may turn out to be the most significant
impact
of the Spanish economic miracle on the country's
intractable
regional disparities.
During the last decade of the Franco era and the first
decade
of democracy, the population became steadily more
urbanized,
although Spain was already a fairly urban country even in
the
1960s. Between 1965 and 1985, the population living in
urban
areas rose from 61 to 77 percent of the total, a level
slightly
higher than the average for the advanced industrial
countries.
Urbanization intensified during the 1960s and the 1970s,
when
cities grew at the rate of 2.4 percent annually, but the
rate
slowed to 1.6 percent during the first half of the 1980s.
The
mid-decennial census of April 1, 1986, showed that the
Madrid
area, accounting for 12.5 percent of the total population,
continued to dominate the country. The six cities of over
half a
million--Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga, Seville, (Spanish,
Sevilla),
Valencia, Zaragoza--together accounted for approximately
19
percent
(see table 5).
A comparison of population densities among the
provinces
illustrates dramatically the drain of the rural population
toward
the major cities
(see
fig. 8). In 1981 Spain's overall
population
density was 79 persons per square kilometer, about the
same as
that of Greece or Turkey and far below the average of such
heavily urbanized countries as West Germany. Population
densities
ranged, however, from the practically deserted interior
Castilian
provinces, like Soria (9 per square kilometer) and
Guadalajara
(12), to some of the most densely populated territory in
Europe,
such as Madrid (607 per square kilometer), Barcelona (592
per
square kilometer), and Vizcaya (527 per square kilometer).
In
terms of the autonomous community system, four
regions--Madrid
(4.9 million people), Catalonia (6.0 million), Valencia
(3.8
million), and Andalusia (6.9 million)--held 50 percent of
the
country's population in 1986. None of the remaining 13
autonomous
regions had more than 2.8 million people.
A comparison of regional population distribution
changes from
1962 to 1982 shows clearly the effects of urbanization and
the
transformation of the work force. In this 20-year period,
three
regions increased their share of the country's population
by
three percentage points or more: Catalonia (from 13.1 to
16.6),
Madrid (from 8.7 to 12.5), and Valencia (from 7.0 to
10.0).
Several other regions, notably the Canary Islands and the
Basque
Country, registered moderate gains of about one percentage
point.
In contrast, the big losers (declines of three percentage
points
or more) were Andalusia (19.3 to 16.2) and Castilla y Leon
(9.1
to 6.1). Other regions also losing their historical share
of the
country's population were Castilla-La Mancha, Galicia, and
Extremadura. It is clear that during these two decades
Spain's
population balance shifted dramatically from the poor and
rural
provinces and regions to the much richer and more
urbanized ones.
Since the birth rates in the more modernized and more
urbanized
parts of the country tended to be even lower than the
national
average (the Spanish birth rate averaged between 14 and 15
per
thousand in 1980-85, whereas the Basque Country rate
averaged
only 12), it is equally clear that this shift in the
population
balance was due principally to internal migration rather
than to
changes in birth rates.
Internal migration concentrated primarily on the huge
cities
of Madrid and Barcelona in the 1960s and the 1970s, but by
the
1980s a significant change began to appear in the
migration data.
An examination of the data for 1983 and 1984--years in
which,
respectively, 363,000 and 387,000 persons changed
residence in
Spain--revealed several trends. First, the major losers of
population were small towns (of fewer than 2,000
inhabitants
each), which sustained a combined net loss of about 10,000
people
each year, and large cities (of more than 500,000), which
together had a net annual loss of more than 20,000.
Second, the
major net gains in population were made by cities of
between
100,000 and 500,000, which had a net annual increase of
more than
20,000. Third, all the other town or city size categories
either
had stable populations or experienced only small losses or
gains.
Thus, while provinces like Barcelona, dominated by a
single huge
city, actually lost population (more than 15,000 people in
each
of the years 1983 and 1984), provinces like Seville or Las
Palmas, with large cities that had not yet reached the
bursting
point, experienced significant net in-migration. This
reflected a
more mature form of population relocation than the simple
frantic
movement from the farm to Madrid or Barcelona that had
characterized the earlier decades of the Spanish economic
boom.
Migration was significant not only between regions
within the
country but abroad as well. The movement of the Spanish
population abroad resembled that of many Third World
countries
that sent large waves of migrants to Western Europe and to
North
America in the late 1960s and the early 1970s in search of
better
jobs and living standards and in response to labor
shortages in
the more advanced industrial countries. Between 1960 and
1985,
nearly 1.3 million Spaniards emigrated to other West
European
countries. More than 500,000 went to Switzerland; more
than
400,000, to West Germany; and about 277,000, to France.
This flow
of migrant workers reached its peak in the 1969 to 1973
period,
when 512,000 Spanish citizens--some 40 percent of the
entire
25-year total, an average of more than 102,000 each year--
migrated. Following the economic downturn in Europe in the
mid-1970s, Spanish migration dwindled to between 10,000
and
20,000 each year, although there was a slight increase in
the
early 1980s in response to worsening economic conditions
in Spain
itself. In contrast, the late 1970s saw the return of many
Spaniards from abroad, especially from Europe, as economic
opportunities for Spaniards declined in Europe and as
democracy
returned to Spain. In the peak return year, 1975, some
110,000
Spaniards returned from Europe, and Spain's net emigration
balance was minus 89,000.
In 1987, according to the government's Institute on
Emigration, more than 1.7 million Spanish citizens resided
outside the country. About 947,000 lived in the Western
Hemisphere, principally in Argentina (374,000), Brazil
(118,000),
Venezuela (144,000), and the United States (74,000). More
than
750,000 Spanish citizens lived in other West European
countries,
primarily France (321,000), West Germany (154,000), and
Switzerland (108,000). Aside from these two heavy
concentrations,
the only other significant Spanish populations abroad were
in
Morocco (10,000) and in Australia (22,500).
Data as of December 1988
|
