Spain Has The Highest Number Of Foreign Inhabitants Recorded In A Decade
Spain News
Published: 25 January 2023 18:20 CET
The number of inhabitants in Spain has reached record numbers, with 47,475,420 people registered on the padrón in January 2022.
According to census data from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE), foreigners are boosting population numbers to historic levels.
The latest figures show that Spain’s population has grown by 90,313 people, an increase of 0.19 percent compared to the previous year.
In 2020, the number of residents in Spain dropped dramatically, mostly due to the number of deaths during the Covid pandemic.
The new data suggests that the recovery is mainly down to the influx in the foreign population, which skyrocketed by 102,784 people to 5,542,932 over the 12-month period. These figures show that non-nationals now make up 11.7 percent of the total number of residents living in Spain. A number that hasn’t been recorded since back in 2013.
Of the roughly 5.5 million foreigners that are now living in Spain, the number that are EU citizens is around 1.6 million.
Of these EU citizens in Spain, Romanians are the biggest group, with 623,097 people living in the country. They are followed by the Italians with 273,889 people and the Germans with 115,099.
Of the non-European foreigners who are resident in Spain, Moroccans are the largest group with 883,243 natives currently living in the country, followed by Colombians with 314,679 and British nationals with 293,171.
Looking ahead, this trend of an increasing foreign population seems to be continuing into the future. According to projections released by the INE, the Spanish population is set to experience some big demographic changes in the coming years.
The statistics predict that in the future, the Spanish population is set to get older, plus there will be more immigrants. The INE figures forecast that Spain will acquire 4,236,335 people by 2037, with the population set to reach 51 million. That will be an increase of some 8.9 percent.
The projected population growth is forecast to be driven largely by inward migration. If INE models are accurate, this would mean that the Spanish-born population will see a steady decline and fall from the current 84.5 percent to 63.5 percent within 50 years.
In other words, by the year 2072, 36.5 percent of the people resident in Spain, a little over one in three, will have been born in another country.
According to the padrón, in regards to age, the average overall age is 44.1 years, with the average age of Spaniards being slightly older at 45 years and foreigners 37.1 years old.
The age of EU citizen foreigners living in Spain comes between the two, with an average of 39.6 years old.
Among the large foreign national groups, the highest average ages are those from northern European nations that have large retired communities living in Spain, such as Britons whose average age is 54.1 years, Germans 50 years, and French 43 years.
The foreign nationals with the lowest average age are people from Honduras where it is 30.4 years, Pakistan 31.1 years, and Morocco 32 years.
Sources
https://spanishnewstoday.com/population_boom_spain_records_highest_number_of_foreign_inhabitants_in_a_decade_1986800-a.html
https://www.thelocal.es/20230125/growing-number-of-foreigners-drives-spanish-population-growth/
