Press Release 04/04/2018
In 2016 28% of Basque Country residents had been born outside of the autonomous region
The average age of individuals born abroad stood at 36.8, almost 8 years less than that of the total population
28% of the population resident in the Basque Country were born outside of the Autonomous Region and, within this collective, almost one in three inhabitants, 32% to be precise, corresponded to individuals who had been born abroad, according to data prepared by EUSTAT relative to the 2016 Population and Housing Censuses.
The percentage of individuals born outside of the Basque Country has remained stable over the last 15 years, although changes have been produced in their origins. In this period the population resident in the Basque Country born abroad has increased by almost 7 percentage points, whereas on the other hand the population resident in the Basque Country born in the rest of Spain has gone from 24.7% to 18.9%.
9.4% of residents in our autonomous region were born abroad, a lower percentage than that of Spain as a whole, which stood at 13.3%. The countries that provided the highest number of inhabitants to the Basque Country were, in order, Morocco (10.8%), Colombia (9.2%), Romania (8%) and Bolivia (5.7%). Of these, 52.3% were women and 47.7% men.
By Autonomous Region of birth, the highest number of individuals in the Basque Country originated from Castilla y León, 7.7% of the population, followed by Extremadura (2.4%) and Galicia (1.9%). At the opposite extreme, individuals born in the Balearic Islands only accounted for 0.04%.
Regarding the age of the population born outside of the Basque Country, a notable difference was observed according to place; thus, the average age of individuals born abroad was 36.8, whereas for the population born in other Autonomous Regions it was much higher, 63.2.
Two out of every five individuals continued to live in the municipality where they were born
43.6% of the population of the Basque Country resided in their municipality of birth, known as sedentary population; 33.2% lived in a different municipality to that where they were born but within the Basque Country, that is, the internal migrant population, and the remaining 23.2% originated from other Autonomous Regions or from abroad.
58% of women in the Basque Country have changed their place of residence at some point in the lives, whether by internal migration or immigration; in the case of men this percentage drops to 54.6%.
By province, there were some differences in mobility in the Basque Country. Bizkaia was the province with the least sedentary population, 41.6%, against 44.7% for Álava and 46.3% for Gipuzkoa. In the case of internal migration Bizkaia particularly stood out, with 36% of the population originating from other municipalities in the Basque Country. Álava is the province with most residents from outside the Basque Country, 32%, and where there were the least internal migrations (23.3%).
In the regional sphere, Markina-Ondarroa (53.8%), Alto Deba (53.2%) and Urola Costa (51.9%) stood out as the regions with the highest proportion of sedentary population. In turn, Rioja Alavesa (43%), Llanada Alavesa (34.2%) and Valles Alaveses (32%) presented the highest percentages of immigrant population. Finally, in comparative terms, a greater number of individuals originating from other municipalities of the Basque Country resided in the regions of Plentzia-Mungia (58.7%) and Estribaciones del Gorbea (55.3%), even exceeding the proportion of indigenous residents.
Almost half a million individuals arrived in their municipality of residence after 2006
In 2016 a total of 471,943 individuals resided in a municipality in which they arrived during the last decade. Of these 289,161, 61.3%, previously lived in another municipality of the Basque Country; 13.2% had come directly from abroad and the remainder, 25.5%, originated from other Autonomous Regions.
Within the group of migrant individuals originating from other Autonomous Regions, special mention should be made of the weight of Castilla y León, which provided 17,188 individuals, Cantabria (12,761), Madrid (12,320), Catalonia (9,548), Andalusia (8,450) and Navarra (7,929). In contrast, just 352 individuals originated from Ceuta y Melilla and fewer than 2,000 came from the Balearic Islands.
For further information:
Eustat - Euskal Estatistika Erakundea / Basque Statistics Institute
C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz
Press Service: servicioprensa@eustat.es Tel: 945 01 75 62