Press Release 30/09/2022
The population aged 65 and over in the Basque Country has multiplied by 2.5 over the last four decades, accounting for 23% of the total population in 2021
Tomorrow, Saturday, October 1, the International Day of older Persons is celebrated
People aged 65 and over accounted for 23% of the Basque population as of 01/01/2021: 57.3% (288,716) were women and 42.7% (215,337) were men. Women aged 65 and over represented 13.2% of the total population and men 9.8%. Bizkaia was the province wit the highest percentage of older people (23.4%), followed by Gipuzkoa (22.9%) and Álava (21.6%), according to Eustat data.
The Basque Country, with 23% of its total population, occupied second place in the 2020 ranking of European Union countries (20.6%) with the largest 65 and over populations, behind only Italy (23.2%) and more than 3 percentage points above the Spanish average (19.6%).
Over the last four decades, between 1981 and 2021, the population aged 65 and over in the Basque Country has multiplied by 2.5, while at the same time there has been a continuous decrease in population numbers in the youngest age strata. More striking was the population increase among older people aged 85 and over, as their number had multiplied by 5.3 over the last 40 years, accounting for 4.1% of the population in 2021. The average age at death in 2021, 81 years old, has increased by almost 6 years since 2001 (75.3 years old).
Dependency and people living alone: in 2021, there were 39.1 dependants aged 65 and over for every 100 people of working age; 43.7% of people living alone were aged 65 and over
In 2021, the old-age dependency ratio, measured as the population aged 65 and over (the “theoretically” dependent population) compared to the population aged 20-64 (the “potentially” productive, active or working-age population), stood at 39.1 theoretically dependent people per 100 people of working age.
Between 2001 and 2021, the number of dependants per 100 potentially active people rose by 11.2 people, going from 27.9 dependants in 2001 to 39.1 in 2021: of the total number of dependants, 22.4 were women and 16.7 were men.
In 2021, of the estimated total of 118,700 dependants of the working population living in the Basque Country, approximately 100,100, i.e. 84%, were people aged 65 and over.
Evolution of the dependency index of the elderly of the Basque Country. 2001-2021
Number of people aged 65 and over/100 people aged 20 to 64
2001 2004 2007 2010 2013 2016 2019
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2001 2004 2007 2010 2013 2016 2019
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A total of 270,558 people lived alone in the Basque Country in 2021, just over 12% (12.3%) of the total population, 57% of whom were women and the remaining 43% were men. 118,226 of those living along, i.e. 43.7%, were aged 65 and over. In the same age group, 23.5% of people lived alone, 30% of women and nearly 15% of men.
In 2021, up to the age of 64, the population living alone was predominantly male. From the age of 65 onwards, there were more women living alone than men in all age groups: between the ages of 70 and 74, 2 in 3 people living alone were women; 3 in 4 between 75 and 79; almost 4 in 5 between 80 and 84; and more than 80% of the total number of people living alone from the age of 85 onwards were women.
Health, use of health services and mortality: people aged 65 and over accounted for half of all hospital admissions
In 2020, there were 222,438 hospital admissions in the Basque Country, just over half of which were among people aged 65 and over. These admissions corresponded to a total of 2,035,368 hospital stays, with a stay being understood as each night that a person remains in hospital. People aged 65 and over accounted for 57% of the total number of stays.
The main causes of hospitalisation among older people of both sexes were circulatory and digestive diseases, followed by external causes for women and tumours for men.
The main causes of hospital stays among people aged 65 and over, for both sexes, were mental health and behavioural disorders and circulatory diseases. Disorders causing hospital stays were more prevalent among women than men. In many cases, these disorders led to prolonged stays at specialist psychiatric hospitals.
In 2021, 23,073 people died in the Basque Country, 11,508 women and 11,565 men. The average age of people who died was 81: the average age at death among women stood at 84 and among men it was 78. 87.4% of women who died were over 69 years old and 74.6% were over 79; among men, 76.9% of deaths occurred at 70 years old and above, and 54.2% at 80 and above.
The two leading causes of death in women aged 70 and over, i.e. circulatory diseases (29.4% of total deaths in this age range) and tumours (17.3%), were the same as the leading causes in men, but in reverse order: tumours represented 28.4% of total deaths and circulatory diseases 25.3%, with both causes accounting for over half (53.7%) of all deaths in men aged 70 and over.
The prevalence of mental health and behavioural disorders as the cause of death in people aged 70 and over was higher among women (11.3%) than men (6.6%). COVID-19 was the third most common cause of death in men aged 70 and over, representing 8.4% of total deaths in this age range. In women aged 70 and over, COVID-19 accounted for 6.6% of total deaths in this age range, making it the fifth most common cause of death.
In 2021, there were a total of 1,682 deaths where COVID-19 was the main cause, i.e. 7.3% of the total number of deaths that year (757 female and 925 male), 45.7% fewer deaths than in 2020. 61.2% of deaths caused by COVID-19 occurred in people aged 80 and over: 53.3% of men who died due to COVID-19 were 80 or over, a percentage that rose to 70.8% in the case of women.
Environmental awareness and attitude: 88% of older people were in favour of adopting measures to protect the environment in 2020
94% of people aged 65 and over stated that they were concerned about the environment in 2020 and 77% were very concerned. These levels of concern were slightly lower than those among the population aged 16 and over as a whole (97% and 83%, respectively).
Since 2015, concern for the environment has grown across all age groups, especially among older people.
In 2020, 88% of the population aged 65 and over were in favour of adopting measures to protect the environment (87% and 90% of women and men, respectively), a figure that stood at around 92% among the population aged 16 and over. The environmental measures with the greatest consensus among older people were those aimed at: reducing traffic noise (73%); restricting abusive water consumption (63%); introducing a tax on fuels (56%); making it compulsory to sort household waste (50%); and increasing the capacity of renewable energy (49%). The measure with the least consensus was paying a higher price for alternative energy (23%).
Internet use: nearly 100% of people aged 65 and over who used the internet in 2021 used communication and information access services, particularly WhatsApp and other messaging applications
85% of the population aged 15 and over used the internet in 2021, 83% of women and 87% of men. Almost half of over-64s (49%) used the internet that year: in this age group, the gender gap in internet use (46% of women and 54% of men) stood at 8 percentage points, double the gap in the population as a whole.
Practically all (nearly 100%) of people aged 65 and over who used the internet used it as a communication and information access service, with the use of WhatsApp and other instant messaging applications standing out (96% of women and 91% of men). Over half (51%) used it as a form of entertainment and creativity (47% of women and 56% of men), while 34% used it as a tool for managing their health by searching for information and, to a lesser extent, for making medical appointments. Furthermore, 26% of older people who used the internet used the electronic administration, although use among men (36%) was twice as high as among women (18%).
For further information:
Eustat - Euskal Estatistika Erakundea / Basque Statistics Institute
C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz
Press Service: servicioprensa@eustat.eus Tel.: 945 01 75 62