The A.C. of the Basque Country will have 2,194,900 inhabitants by 2015, of which 1,070,600 (48.7%) will be male and the rest, 1,124,300 (51.3%), female. As a consequence there will be almost 116,000 more people than in 2000. It is predicted that in these fifteen years the population of the A.C. of the Basque Country will increase at a consistant but moderate annual growth rate of +0,36%.

The provincial forecast predicts that the population of Alava will increase by almost 48,000 inhabitants, so that not only will the major part of the absolute population growth in the A.C. of the Basque Country be concentrated here (41.4% of the total), but that it will have the highest average annual growth rate, (+1.04%). For its part, the population of Bizkaia will have 40,000 people more than in 2015 and a rate of growth of +0,23%. Gipuzkoa will have the lowest absolute growth of all the A.C. of the Basque Country, 28,000 individuals, that is 24.1% of total growth for the period.

Both the natural balance, births less deaths, and the migratory balance, immigrations less emigrations, contribute to make the total balance positive and, therefore, the population increase. During the projected period 24,700 people will be added to the population as a consequence of the natural balance and almost 91,000 people will be added as a consequence of the balance between immigration and emigration.

The aging process of the population continues

The population aged under 20, which represented 17.4% of the total population of the A.C. of the Basque Country in 2000, will rise to represent 18.6% in 2015, resulting in 47,700 more young people, in contrast with the previous trend of continuous falls in this segment of the population.

However, this change is not enough to counteract the considerable increase in the population aged 65 or above: 101,000 people more, representing a proportional increase among the total population for this age group, from 17.6% in 2000 to 21.3% in 2015. But the biggest increase occurs in the proportion of people aged 85 or over, increasing from 9.9% of the total population in 2000 to 16.4% in 2015, as a result of the consequence of a higher growth rate of the very elderly segment of the population (+5.14% annual) with respect to the elderly (+1.64% annual). This rate of growth represents an absolute increase of more than 40,000 personas aged 85 or above, from 36,100 to 76,600 in 15 years, more than double, in what is a very short time period.

On the other hand, the “adult” population, that is those aged between 20 and 64, drop in number by 33,100 within the period 2000-2015, falling in their share of representation of the total population by almost 5 percentage points between 2000 and 2015 (from 65% to 60,1%).

The decrease in “potentially active” will have some significant consequences if we consider that it is not only the number of elderly people that is increasing but also the number of young people, implicating a greater burden on the active population. In deed, those generations born before 1995, that is to say, the sparsest population age group of the A.C. of the Basque Country will form part of the potentially active population, just when those born after this date will be growing and while those more populous generations born after the Civil War reach the age of retirement, circumstances which will reinforce demographic ageing.

Fertility recovers, the number of births rises.

Although still far from guaranteeing the generational replacement, the number of births per female reveals a significant recovery, as it represents an increase of 50% on the level reached in 2000, and reaches 1.5 children per female in the year 2015. The improvement in fertility will be witnessed in all age groups, but mainly in women of 30 years of age or more, to which 73% of children will be born in 2015 compared to 64% in 1995, which was one of the lowest years for fertility. A consequence of this is that the average age of maternity will rise from 31.3 to 32.5 in these 20 years.

The number of births will increase until 2010 due to the increased rate of fertility, but from that year on and until 2015 this number will decrease, as, although the same level of fertility is maintained, the number of women of childbearing age will decrease.

Life expectancy continues its upward trend.

Between 2000 and 2015 the mortality rate will fall for all age groups, but particularly so between the ages of 6 and 15 and also between the ages 31 and 40, above all among women. Mortality rates for females will also fall by 54% during their first year of life, while the fall for male children will only be 13%. The infant mortality rate for girls in 2015 will be 6 times lower than it was 40 years ago in 1975, while for boys it will be 6 times lower.

Life expectancy at birth will reach 80.2 for men and 86.9 for women in 2015, figures which were 76.4 and 83.7, respectively, in 2000. However, in these years the gap between male and female mortality rates will diminish, something that had been witnessed in the last five years of the previous century. The difference between life expectancy for women and for men will fall from 7.3 in 2000 to 6.7 in the final period considered in this projection, that is the year 2015.

The migratory balance will be the most important factor determining population growth.

It is worth outlining the significance of migration in the population growth throughout the period 2000-2015 compared to the natural balance: 78.6% and 21.4%, respectively. Thus, the migratory balance of the A.C. of the Basque Country will increase from 2,600 people in 2000 to 9,400 in 2015 and this despite the fact that from 2005 onwards the number of immigrants will fall, although the number of emigrants will also fall from 2007, to such an extent that the migratory balance in the final year of the projection will be higher than any other year during the period.

Immigration from abroad, after an upward trend until the first years of this century, will begin a gradual descent until reaching 3,000 people per year by 2015. However, the trend for immigration from the rest of Spain is one of gradual, and, to a certain extent, regular increase, until reaching a figure of 22,500 people in 2001.

Emigration to outside the A.C. of the Basque Country will oscillate from 17,500 people in 2000 to 16,100 in 2015, peaking at 24,300 in 2007.

Historically, Alava has always had positive migratory balances, but the negative balances of the other two Provinces were so high, that even with a positive natural balance the total population fell. This situation changed suddenly in 2001 when a significant increase in immigration was registered producing positive balances for Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, a situation which, with greater or lesser balances will be maintained until 2015. Even in the first period of the projection, from 2001 to 2005, Bizkaia will have a migratory balance higher than Alava, but from that year onwards the situation will return to being a higher migratory balance for Alava in comparison to the other Provinces.

For their part, the internal migrations of the A.C. of the Basque Country will fall slightly, more as a consequence of the population structure than due to a limitation of mobility. However, although annually it is a low figure, the direction of the inter-provincial migratory balance varies according to the Province. So, throughout the whole period under projection, Alava will gain 4,500 people, while Bizkaia will lose 3,800 people and Gipuzkoa 700 people.