Migration and the Speeding Dynamics of Population Change: Urban and Rural Areas in Spain

Osama Damoun , Center for Demographic Studies
Andreu Domingo, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Jordi Bayona i Carrasco, Universitat de Barcelona (UB) & Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics (CED)

In the last twenty years, two unprecedented international migration waves took place in Spain, driving foreign-born population from 4% in the year 2000 to 16% in 2022. A peak of international inflows took place before the Great Recession in 2007 with 900k+ arrivals, placing Spain only behind the US in terms of international immigration. Spain used to be an emigration country, but this new context combined with a record lowest-low fertility, makes it a privileged case to study population change: Will the growing role of migrations in population change reduce or increase the urban-rural demographic disparities between Spanish regions? This will be answered by applying a novel methodological steps: (1) We will measure migrations’ weight on the “fast” population change (Billari, 2022) following the urban-rural typology of Goerlich et al (2016) that classifies municipalities in six categories (Open Urban, Closed Urban, Open Intermediate, Closed Intermediate, Accessible Rural and Remote Rural); (2) we will decompose (Kitagawa, 1955) this change to asses contribution of age and each demographic component paying special attention to different types of migrations; and (3) test if these components have converged across the urban-rural typology over the last two decades, focusing in two migration waves (2000-2007 and 2014-2022). We expect: (a) to find that international migrations became an integral part of the demographic system of urban as well as rural regions; (b) a complex picture of converging and diverging clubs of regions according to the component of change.

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 Presented in Session P3. Migration, Economics, Policies, History