The population of Spain will add 5 million inhabitants in 20 years

Madrid (EFE).- Spain will gain almost five million inhabitants over the next 20 years, reaching almost 52.3 million in 2042, but the population will stagnate over the following three decades despite the continued arrival of immigrants, according to the latest demographic projection of the National Institute of Statistics (INE), published this Thursday.

If current demographic trends continue, the INE points out, the population aged 65 and over will represent 26% of the total in 2037 and the gradual and uninterrupted increase in deaths, always higher than the number of births, will lead to a decrease vegetative balance throughout the projected period.

In this context, Statistics proposes that the increase in population will be due “exclusively” to international migration and that the population born in Spain will gradually decrease from 84.5% of the total currently to 63.5% by 50 year.

In more detail, the INE projection indicates that the number of births will increase between 2023 and 2041, although less than hitherto, and also from 2058 due to the arrival then at the ages of greatest fertility of more and more generations.

This, he specifies, assuming that female fertility maintains a slight but gradual upward trend and that it reaches 1.27 children per woman on average in 2036, compared to 1.19 today.

Many more deaths than births

Regarding deaths, it indicates that life expectancy at birth will reach 86 years in 2071 for men and 90 years for women, respectively 5.8 and 4.2 years longer than today.

Despite this, the number of deaths will continue to grow until it reaches a maximum in 2064 (about 670,000, or nearly 300,000 more than births).

The projection also quantifies the process of aging of the population and underlines that – provided that the current demographic trend is maintained – the largest age bracket on 1 January 2037 will be between 55 and 64 years and the proportion of people 65 years and over will increase from 20.1% currently to 30.4% around 2050.

Despite the fact that in the last years of the projection there will be some rejuvenation of the population, the so-called “dependency ratio” (ratio in percentage between the population under 16 or over 64 and that aged 16 to 64) will also peak around 2050 (76.8%), and then gradually decrease (72.2% in 2072).

The centenarian population will be multiplied by more than 15 to reach nearly 227,000 within 50 years.

The population will decline in the northwest third

By territories, the population will decrease only in the northwestern third and in the autonomous cities: 8.9 in Ceuta, 6.7 in Asturias, 4.8 in Extremadura, 4.1 in Castile and León, 3.1 in Melilla and 1.3% in Galicia.

On the contrary, it will increase more in the Balearic Islands (25.0%), Murcia (16.0%) and the Canary Islands (15.5%) and Catalonia and Madrid will each add another million inhabitants in the 15 coming years.

Contrary to the general trend, both in Ceuta and Melilla and in Murcia, Madrid and the Balearic Islands, the cumulative number of births will exceed the number of deaths in the next 15 years.

The migratory balance with foreigners until 2036 will be positive in all communities, especially in the Balearic and Canary Islands, while internal migration will bring more population to Aragon, Cantabria and La Rioja and subtract Ceuta and Melilla, Madrid, Extremadura and the Basque Country.

The following table shows, by Autonomous Community, the resident population on January 1, 2022 (provisional data) and 2037 (projection) and the variation between the two figures in absolute and relative terms (%):

Web editor: Rocio Casas