RISKS OF THE LACK OF DEMOGRAPHIC POLICIES IN SPAIN.

INTRODUCTION: SPAIN, POPULATION AND DEMOGRAPHY

The population of Spain doubled during the twentieth century, from 18 million inhabitants in 1900
to more than 46 millions in 2015.

In the first half of the XX century, the birth rate was high, but there was also a high children´s
death rate and the life expectancy was not high at the time that Health System was neither
universal nor highly developed.

in the 1960s, masses of population moved from the rural areas to the cities, and an economic
expansion and industrialization was been developing throughout the nation, mainly in some
regions near the sea. Some other reasons such as the improvements in the Health System and
welfare made Spain starts the Baby Boom at this time, although these changes occur later than in
other western countries,

THE DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION: FALL OF FERTILITY RATES

The demographic transition is the theory that societies progress from a pre-modern regime of high
fertility and high mortality to a post-modern regime of low fertility and low mortality. The cause of the
transition has been sought in the reduction of the death rate by controlling epidemic and contagious
diseases. Then, with modernization, children become more costly. Cultural changes weaken the
importance of children. The increasing empowerment of women to make their own reproductive
decisions leads to smaller families. Thus there is a change in values, emphasizing the quality of
children rather than their quantity.

the economic crisis of those years brought a rise in unemployment at the time of the industrial
reconversion years. This, plus the progressive incorporation of women to work, made the birth
rate drop significantly.

While other European countries reacted with family planning policies, the successive
governments in Spain did nothing about it, and the number of family members dropped until
Spain was the European country with the lowest birth rate in 1988.

Spain went from being a country with the highest birth rate in Europe (2.90 children per
woman in 1970) to having the lowest rates in the world (1.15 in 1998),

In 1976, the Spanish fertility rate (the number of children the average woman will have
during her lifetime) was 2.8 children per woman, compared with 1.3 right now

RISE OF IMMIGRATION

The economic growth at the end of 90’s made Spain becomes a net receiver of immigrants, and
the number of foreign inhabitants increased to 5,6 million in 2011. It was from 2000 to 2010 when
the population in Spain had a last significant increment, going from 40 to 46,5 million in 2010. And
the influx of immigrants raised the birth rate again
Right now, however, immigrants are moving back home
But the last economic crisis in those years not only caused a reduction in the immigrants
reception, but even many of them went back to their original countries and hundreds of thousands
of young Spanish people had to go abroad to look for a job, wich caused the growth of population
to be reduced again, until it reached a negative ratio in 2015.

 At the same time, life expectancy was getting longer year after year, the main reasons
being the National Health System and a balanced diet, being one of the first countries in
the world in these figures. Spain is second in Europe and fourth worldwide in terms of life
expectancy at birth.

This results in an aging population.

AGING POPULATION

The fertile population segment (15-45 years old) is shrinking because the
younger generations are reducing in number, at the same time that growing
numbers of Spanish women are delaying motherhood, or renouncing it
altogether, while the smaller immigrant population in Spain is no longer
compensating for the shortfall in newborns. .. It is also a fact that immigrant
women are themselves having fewer children, partly because of sociocultural
assimilation, and partly because of the crisis.
increased life expectancy combined with declining birth rates have caused many to
worry about the cost of an ageing population.

more than one third of the population will be 65 or older by 2050

Main Impacts of an Ageing Population

1. Increase in the dependency ratio. there will be relatively more people claiming pension benefits
and less people working and paying income taxes.

2. Increased government spending on health care and pensions.

3. Those in work may have to pay higher taxes. This could create disincentives to work and
disincentives for firms to invest, therefore there could be a fall in productivity and growth.
4. Shortage of workers.
NEED FOR A DEMOGRAPHIC POLICY

But the fact that the population is getting older, is the reason of some doubts in the future of the
economy in Spain, where the cost of Health and retirement payment are going to be difficult to
afford because of the unbalanced figures of the State. In the last years, Immigration was the
solution to the aging problem, but at present there´s an unemployment rate around of 20%, what
causes inmigrants to go back to their countries and Spanish young people to migrate to another
countries, what means a reduction of net population, mostly young people, and increasing the
aging of the Spanish population.

Then, there´s a controversial and paradoxical reason: We need to avoid the consequences of a
near future of older population, we need a workforce able to support the payment of the pensions
for the continuously increasing amount of retired people, but we don´t have jobs to offer.

Some of the impact of these demographic changes can also be

reduced with :

longer working life or greater participation in the workforce. A

longer life expectancy, especially more healthy years, is going to
allow people to work much longer,

encouraging the participation of women and other under-

represented groups in the workforce such as immigrants

increasing the number of hours worked.

An ageing population and consequent rise in dependency ratios

could reduce tax revenue and increase public spending significantly.
an older population also entails higher spending in three areas:
pensions, healthcare and long-term care while there is less
expenditure on education
in order to rise the birth rate or a regulated process to receive immigration of young people Some
policies could be the solution but, at the same time, we don´t have vacancies in jobs to offer
them, and even in the last years hundreds of thousands of young Spanish people had to migrate
abroad to look for a job.

The next governments will have to take some complicated measures in this way, because the
social expenses are at the moment difficult to support for the State, but we need to retain the
workforce to replace the future retirements and to assure the future retirement payment that will
increase at the same time as the Health costs of an aging population.

The second great concern of demographic change is how it will

affect the sustainability of the welfare state One of the areas that
cause most concern, and where most progress has been made in
recent years, is the sustainability of the pension system. The reason
is that an ageing population is a huge challenge in a distributive
pension system such as in Spain, where the retirement pensions
received in a period are funded by contributions paid by workers
during the same period. In this case the expected rise in the
dependency ratio could jeopardise the system

Such countries therefore have the potential to at least partially delay

the phenomenon of an ageing population in developed countries via
immigration. Another way to offset demographic change in
developed countries is by boosting immigration