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Aging Spain: population to fall 5 million by 2064

Steve Tallantyre
Steve Tallantyre - [email protected]
Aging Spain: population to fall 5 million by 2064
The number of Spanish people aged over 100 is predicted to rise from 13,551 to 372,000 over the next 50 years. Photo: Cesar Manso/AFP

Spain's population will shrink by 5.6 million in the next 50 years with much of the population aged over 65 and living alone, new official forecasts released on Tuesday warn.

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New data from Spain's National Institute of Statistics (INE) predicts that Spain's population will shrink by 5.6 million before 2064 and that almost 40 per cent of people will be aged over 65 by then, while the number of people living alone will increase by almost 38 per cent in the next 15 years.

The Spanish Population Projection 2014-2064 report published on Tuesday showed that if current trends continue, Spain will have 1 million fewer inhabitants in 15 years time and 5.6 million fewer 50 years from now.

Those who are left will be older: the percentage of people aged over 65 is forecast to rise from 18.2 percent now to 38.7 percent in 2064.

The predicted decline in numbers is the result of Spain's falling birth-rate, a trend that began in 2009.

Immigration is currently rising (there was a 14.3 per cent increase from 2013–2014) but more people will have abandoned Spain by the end of 2014 (417,191) than will have arrived (332,522). That trend is predicted to reverse after 2021.

Declining birth-rates and longer life-expectancy also account for the change in demographics which will see Spain's elderly population become larger in percentage terms. The number of Spanish people aged over 100 is predicted to rise from 13,551 to 372,000 over the next 50 years.

Meanwhile, the INE's Household Projections study, also released on Tuesday, predicts that there will be 19.2 million Spanish homes by 2029, over a million more than now.

But the number of people living alone is expected to rise by 27.5 per cent, from 4,480,391 now to 5,711,125 in 2029.

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