Population of Spain to fall 10pct by 2050

 

A report published this weekend by Spain's National Institute of Statistics (INE) has detailed how the country should exepct to see the population fall in numbers by around 10% by 2050.

The INE report went on to predict how this will cause severe problems for the country's social security and pensions system, as more and more Spaniards of working age move overseas to seekemployment opportunities.

Sixto Muriel de la Riva, assistant-director of the Population studies department at the INE puts this down to a number of different factors :

Firstly, the economy has put a brake on immigration coming into Spain, as work opportunities are so few.

Secondly, issues such as falling birthrates and an aging population also have a massive bearing on the future fall in the current population, which stands at just over 47 million.

As far as the birthrate is concerned, Spain is now seeing the consequences of the last economic crisis of the late 1980s and 1990s, which saw a fall in the number of children being born. As a resuly, this means that there are now fewer women of childbearing age, who are in turn having fewer children.

de la Riva also said: "There is a greater number of old people at the top of the pyramid and so even though we have longer life expectancy, there are more deaths."

"The level of dependence: which is the difference between the 'inactive' population, those who are not at an age to work because they are too old or too young, and the population that can work, will rise from current levels from 50% to around 100% in 40 years."

"That means that for every person who can't work now, we have 2 people of working age and in 40 years we will have a relation one to one," added de la Riva.