Spatial Movements and Demographic Structure of the Spanish Population
IV. Spatial Movements: Migration
Concepts of Internal and External Migration
Migration is the movement of people in space. We distinguish between emigration, the exit of people from their place of origin, and immigration, the arrival of people to a destination. We have temporary, definitive, pendulous, internal, and external emigration. The migratory balance is the balance between immigration and emigration. If the balance is positive, immigration is greater; if it is negative, emigration is greater. Spain, traditionally an emigrant country, has become an immigrant country in recent years. Understanding migratory movements requires knowledge of the concept of voltage differential, which are interrelated (by way of communicating vessels) between places with low population pressure and economic levels and others with aging and high-income levels. Thus, migration would depend on these two factors, not the starting point or origin.
IV.1. Internal Emigration
We must make a twofold division: internal migrations and final time. Temporary internal migrations are given the seasonal movements of workers in the tourist sector or farmers looking for work at certain times, such as collecting wine, wheat, or olives. The final internal migrations are of more importance, helping us understand the distribution of the Spanish population. The great protagonist of internal migration has been rural depopulation.
Internal Migration in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Until the 18th century, agricultural activities were dominant, and therefore the population was concentrated in the interior of the plateau. Since this century began a slow and uneven process (it will be hatching and end in the 1960s of the 20th century) that is going to substitute agricultural activities for the secondary and tertiary. Thus, in the 18th century, the trend of rural exodus began in inland agricultural areas to areas of secondary and tertiary activities in the periphery. This trend begins to have a really weak in the 19th century when industrialization began in Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Madrid, and the rural exodus is directed towards these areas. In the first third of the 20th century, this rural exodus suffers some acceleration, driven by industrial development during the First World War and the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. The catchment areas are the Cantabrian Coast, Madrid, Catalonia, and Valencia. The civil war and Franco’s autarky are a stagnant economic growth and rural depopulation. But it will be in the 1960s when we come to the conclusion and industrial revolution in Spain and the stage where it was stronger and wider rural exodus and emigration from the interior to the periphery. From 1975, with the oil crisis, this process stops, picks up slightly in the 1980s, but disappears completely in the 1990s, due to the outsourcing of cities and aging of the Spanish field.
Current Internal Migration
Today, the economy has entered a phase of major tertiary, and rural depopulation has been replaced by another type of migration. Witnessing a transfer of population from large cities or suburban areas half driven by the housing problem is the phenomenon of dormitory towns. Moreover, there are still economic migrations to the islands or coastal provinces attracted by the booming tourism industry and construction, but are usually temporary or tilting. Two other current internal migrations occur between highly skilled jobs and between the former migrants. The quaternary sector and the secondary and tertiary are subjected to highly skilled labor mobility is quite important; mobility is an increasing trend. Moreover, it is produced and is producing a return of former migrants to their places of origin on retirement or early retirement by industrial restructuring.
IV.2. External Migration
Spain has traditionally been an emigrant country. The industrial revolution and economic modernization in Spain has been a slow and uneven process that began in the 19th century and had its final stage in the 1960s. This modernization has been driven by the exhaust valve, which caused the emigration external and decreasing population pressure and provided foreign exchange with which to counter the trade balance deficit. These migrations have had two great destinations: Latin America and Western Europe. It has now emerged the phenomenon of immigration. Foreign workers who stay with the less skilled jobs, like the Spanish for forty years. Or the same trend of immigration in Western Europe, but with a delay of forty years and with the property that the emergence of the phenomenon has been abruptly. As in other aspects (economic, political, etc.), we arrived later and more rapidly. The Mediterranean model is summarized in the phrase (“or I do everything today or tomorrow I leave everything”).
Transoceanic and European Emigration
Transoceanic migrations comprise since the mid-19th century until the 1960s. After the loss of the colonies, there was, paradoxically, increased emigration to Latin America, producing a “second Hispanization” but now in independent countries. A surge of this migration occurs with the aim of civil war, where a large part of our exile was welcomed by the Iberians. In the 1950s and 1960s, there is also an important migration flow, especially from the Canary Islands and Galicia, but with a secondary position, as most of the migration route to Western Europe. In the 1970s, this trend is stopped, to be replaced by the return of the emigrants and later with the immigration of Latin Americans today. This type of emigration has drawn primarily on peripheral regions with high population pressure, but it was a selective migration. Most of the Catalan and Valencian went to Costa Rica and the Caribbean, the Canaries to Cuba and Venezuela, the Asturian and especially Galicia showed a preference for Argentina. Not surprisingly in this country stands for Spanish.
Emigration from Spain to Europe has always been, especially (temporary transfer of peasants to collection tasks such as harvesting), but it will be in the decade of Spanish Developmental when there was a major mass movement that moved more than two million Spanish workers. It was a temporary emigration (the average was within two years) relatively short, although there are definite migrations, whose origin was in Andalusia, Galicia, and the Castiles (rural exodus) and their main destination was Germany, France, Switzerland, Netherlands, United Kingdom, etc. The theory of voltage differential explains this phenomenon perfectly. These European countries need cheap labor and low-skill, for he was in full economic development, coinciding with the economic recovery made possible by the Marshall Plan. In Spain, the Stabilization Plan of 1959 marked the official start to the boom of rural migration, rural exodus headed for the industrial regions of Spain and European countries. This migration enabled economic development, as it allowed expel the surplus agricultural population and also the balance of trade deficit with the Spanish emigrants currency.
Current Immigration
The immigration phenomenon is relatively new in Spain, where it is produced as in the rest of Europe, but with forty years behind. Is fairly important as it takes quite a few consequences and now represents over half of real growth in Spain, however, has not yet reached the proportions of other European countries, but the trend is upwards. Immigrants we can classified into three categories: those that get the nationality, who have regularized their residence and working conditions, and illegal immigrants, according to NGOs that are already majority. As to the merits, we can establish four groups: the Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco, etc.), Ibero-Saharan Africa and Asia, and Eastern Europe, in order of arrival and numerical importance. In terms of location, they have been based in Madrid and Barcelona, the arc of southeastern Levantine agricultural, the Catalan countryside, and the Ebro valley, mainly. In regard to the type of work include agricultural labor, construction, and services not eligible.
Positive and Negative Consequences of Immigration
Immigration has many positive aspects, most notably the rejuvenation of the workforce that will allow them to resolve problems such as the social security, that contribute to economic growth in the country, staying with the less skilled jobs and lower paid or the benefits that entails a possible cultural miscegenation. When integration problems arise, this may occur through multiculturalism (cultural mix) more positive or multiculturalism (ghettoization) more negative. Moreover, illegal immigration is creating real problems, since this enables the increase in crime, exploitation of immigrants by unscrupulous shifts, and the development of xenophobia. In this sense, the political class has reacted by enacting the Spanish immigration law, a law that has been amended three times and expects to be again.
V. Demographic Structure of the Population
Age, sex, marital status, activity.