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IMMIGRATION

Growing number of foreigners drives Spain’s population rise

According to recent census data, foreigners are boosting population numbers in Spain to record levels.

Published: 25 January 2023 13:04 CET
Growing number of foreigners drives Spain's population rise
Photo: Pixabay.

Spain is home to more people than ever.

According to census data from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE), the total number of people living in Spain was 47,475,420, as registered on the padrón on January 1st 2022.

This figure means Spain’s population is the highest it has ever been, after increasing by 90,313 people compared to a year earlier, an increase of 0.19 percent. 

READ ALSO: Spain’s over 65s exceed 20 percent of the population for the first time

This growth represents a recovery from the decline of 2020, a year marked by a surge in deaths during to the Covid-19 pandemic.

This recovery, the figures suggest, is mainly born from a growing foreign population, which increased by 102,784 people to 5,542,932 and accounts for 11.7 percent of the total, a proportion of the Spanish population not seen in the INE data since 2013.

Increasing foreigners

Much of this population growth has been driven by foreigners.

A decade ago, the percentage of registered foreigners in Spain was 12.1 percent, a figure that fell to 9.8 percent in 2017, which was the lowest figure in the last decade.

The remaining native population, all 41,932,488 Spanish nationals, decreased by 12,471 people compared to the previous year.

Age profiles

The average overall age registered on the padrón is 44.1 years, with the average age of Spaniards being slightly older, at 45 years old, and that of foreigners, 37.1 years old. EU citizen foreigners in Spain are in the middle of the two, with an average of 39.6 years old.

Among the large foreign national groups in Spain, the highest average ages are, perhaps unsurprisingly, those from northern European nations that have large retired communities in Spain, such as Britons (54.1 years), Germans (50) and French (43).

At the other end of the spectrum, the foreign nationals with the lowest average age are people from Honduras (30.4 years), Pakistan (31.1) and Morocco (32).

Largest migrant groups

Of the roughly 5.5 million foreigners in Spain, the number that are EU citizens are around 1.6 million. Of these EU citizens in Spain, the Romanians are the biggest group, with 623,097, followed by the Italians (273,889) and Germans (115,099).

Of the non-European foreigners resident in Spain, Moroccans (883,243), Colombians (314,679) and Britons (293,171) are the biggest groups.

Looking ahead

This trend of a growing foreign population seems set to continue into the future, and it may well prove pivotal to Spain’s medium to long-term future.

According to projections released by the INE, the Spanish population is set to undergo some big demographic changes in the coming years.

Taking a broad stroke view of the statistics, Spanish society is set to get older and will be made up of more immigrants in the future, with the INE figures predicting that Spain will gain over 4 million (4,236,335) people by 2037, with the population set to reach 51 million. That represents an increase of 8.9 percent.

Population growth is then anticipated to slow slightly, and by 2072, in 50 years’ time, the Spanish population is projected to reach 52.9 million, an increase of 5.45 million from 2022 figures.

The estimated population growth is predicted 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 84.5 percent, the proportion of the population currently, to 63.5 percent within 50 years.

To put that statistic in other words, by 2072 36.5 percent of people resident in Spain, a little over one in three, will have be born in another country.

Spain’s combination of an ageing population, declining birth rates and high unemployment among young people mean that this influx in foreign labour (and crucially, social security payments) will be crucial in keeping Spain’s pension pot topped-up in the future.

READ ALSO: Spain has third most generous pension compared to salary in Europe

Spain’s working-age population is set to decline, according to projections. The Spanish population between 20 and 64 years of age, which in 2022 was 60.7 percent of the total, is projected to drop to just 53.1 percent by 2052. 

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PENSIONS

Spain needs 25 million foreign workers to keep its pensions afloat

As the retirement of baby boomers looms, Spain's ageing population and declining birth rate mean the country will need millions of foreign workers to maintain its public pension pot and reinforce the labour market, the Bank of Spain has warned.

Published: 2 May 2024 09:46 CEST
Spain needs 25 million foreign workers to keep its pensions afloat

A recent study by the Bank of Spain estimates that the country will need up to 25 million more immigrant workers by 2053 in order to combat demographic ageing and maintain the ratio of workers to pensioners in order to support the pension system.

Without an influx of more foreign workers or sudden increase in the birth rate in Spain, something that seems very unlikely, experts fear that the growing disparity between working age people and pensioners could put the public pensions system in danger in the medium to long-term.

Like in many countries in the western world, the Spanish population is ageing, with the percentage of the population over 65 years of age predicted to peak in 2050, when almost one in three will be 65 years old or older.

READ ALSO: Spain’s over 65s exceed 20 percent of the population for the first time

By 2035 around one in four (26.0 percent) of Spaniards are expected to be 65 or older. That figure is currently around one fifth of the population.

Furthermore, this is compounded by falling birth rates. Spain’s birth rate hit a record low in 2023, falling to its lowest level since records began, according to INE data. Spain’s fertility rate is the second lowest in the European Union, with Eurostat figures showing there were just 1.19 births per woman in Spain in 2021, compared with 1.13 in Malta and 1.25 in Italy.

If nothing changes, the current ratio of 3.8 people of working age for every pensioner is predicted to plummet to just 2.1 by 2053, according to INE projections.

Maintaining this ratio seems unlikely moving forward, according to the report’s conclusions, something that would put pressure on pensions without significantly increasing social security contributions among working age people.

READ ALSO: Older and more diverse: What Spain’s population will be like in 50 years

The Bank of Spain report noted that “immigrants have high labour participation rates, generally above those of natives – in 2022, 70 percent and 56.5 percent, respectively.”

In three decades’ time, the INE expects Spain to have 14.8 million pensioners, 18 million Spanish nationals of working age and 12 million foreigners. To maintain the ratio, the Bank of Spain forecasts that the working immigrant population would have to rise by more than 25 million to a total of 37 million overall.

Of course, the arrival of 25 million working-age foreigners seems unlikely, if not impossible. To achieve this, around 1 million net migrants would have to enter Spain each year (discounting departures), a figure unprecedented in recent history. To put the figure in context, between 2002 and 2022 net arrivals in Spain reached five million, roughly five times less than what would be necessary to maintain the balance between workers and pensioners.

READ ALSO: ‘Homologación’ – How Spain is ruining the careers of thousands of qualified foreigners

Putting the economics aside, even if such an increase were statistically plausible, such a surge in net migration would be contentious both politically and socially. And it’s not even certain that increased migrant flows would be able to fill the gap in working age people and bolster public pensions: “The capacity of migratory flows to significantly mitigate the process of population ageing is limited,” the Bank of Spain warned in its report. 

What these projections suggest is that Spain’s public pension system will, in coming decades, likely have to be sustained by the contribution of fewer workers overall. This likely means higher social security payments. “Migratory flows have been very dynamic in recent years, but it does not seem likely that they can avoid the process of population ageing… nor completely resolve the imbalances that could arise in the Spanish labour market in the future,” the report stated.

The problem of ageing will also be transferred to the labour market and the types of jobs filled in the future. Increased migratory flows will soften the effect, but the labour characteristics of migrants coming to Spain may not match the job market in the coming decades. The jobs of the future, increasingly digital, will likely require qualifications that many of the migrants expected to arrive in the coming years do not have.

Consequently, the Bank of Spain suggests that “without significant changes in the nature of migratory flows, it does not seem likely that… [they] can completely resolve the mismatches between labour supply and demand that could occur in the coming years in the Spanish labour market.”

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