Rural Demography in Spain Today

摘要

Until the late fifties, Spain was, to a high degree, an agro-rural country. The economic boom, mainly monopolized by Barcelona, Madrid and Bilbao, involved a great rural exodus, a genuine and large rural depopulation in these areas, normally densely populated, and the ageing of the population. In the sixties, a great deal had been written about the large inner migratory movements, but the real influence of these migrations on the remaining rural population is rather unknown. Since 1965, precise demographic measurements give definitive answers to the present differences between rural and urban demography, and emphasize the part played by marriage-rate and fecundity in the deruralisation phenomena of population of districts in the outskirts of the main cities. The decrease of gross birth-rates is not an exclusive consequence of the young people migration, but also the average age for marrying and of the permanent celibacy age increase and of the fecundity decrease. The typical over fecundity has completely disappeared and today these populations appear to be the most malthusian ones in Spain.