According to Eurostat, Zamora will top the list of 1,216 regions, with the mean projected to rise to 62.7, while León, Asturias and Ourense will come in fourth, ninth and 10th place, respectively
Spainâs population fell by 106,146 people last year, the first drop after four straight years of growth. Thatâs according to provisional data released on Tuesday by the National Statistics Institute (INE) and based on local registry statistics.
Of the countryâs 47.3 million registered residents, 88.6% have Spanish citizenship (41.9 million) and 11.4% are foreign nationals (5.4 million). Demographers consulted by this newspaper said that factors such as deaths from the coronavirus pandemic and decreased migration flows due to border closures have played a role in this dip in Spainâs registered population. A fall in the birth rate has also influenced the overall decline to a certain degree.
“It is not convenient to extrapolate the data from the two months of confinement to the rest of the year, but the fall is expected to be strong,” he said.
The Spanish flu pandemic in 1918 had a similar impact on birth rates, though, Alberto Sanz, professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences and Sociology of the Complutense University of Madrid, said recovery from this catastrophe was “fast”.
Mr Sanz said that the aftershocks of the coronavirus pandemic may be felt for longer than they were in 1918.
“Apart from the epidemic crisis, we will have an economic crisis and we have already seen the effects of 2008, which has caused a sustained decline. Now we are entering a year of hiatus and we will have the lowest fertility levels ever in Spain”, he said.
Spain's birth rate plummets by a quarter nine months after lockdown msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.