Celebration of the institutional event commemorating 40 years of the CED

The Auditorium of the Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya played host to the institutional event commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Centre for Demographic Studies (Centre d'estudis demogràfics, CED). Participating in the event were founder of the CED and honorary director Anna Cabré; rector of the UAB Javier Lafuente; Minsiter for Universities and Research Joaquim Nadal, and director of the CED Albert Esteve, who spoke on the tasks conducted by the UAB research centre in these past 40 years as well as the challenges faced by Catalonia with regard to the demographic data. 

Rector Javier Lafuente pointed out that the CED has been crucial in the academic institutionalisation of demography in Catalonia and in the introduction of academic training in demographics within the university system. According to the rector, this UAB research centre has reached its objective of positioning itself as a leading centre of excellence in research and training in demographics: "we are proud to have the CED as part of the UAB and house its headquarters on our campus". "Today the UAB includes postgraduate studies in Demographics and is the only university in Spain to offer a PhD programme in Demographics". For the rector, the synergies created by the CED with the rest of on-campus centres have been key to mutually benefiting new approaches and introducing the demographic perspective in other disciplines".

Anna Cabré, founder and current honorary director, fondly recalled  “the three 'inventors' of the CED: President Jordi Pujol, who also attended the event, Rector Antoni Serra Ramoneda and historian Jordi Nadal”. When speaking about Jordi Nadal, who is no longer with us, she recalled how she accompanied him in the process of creating the CED “without ever imagining that I would be its first director”.

Albert Esteve, director of the CED, explained that Catalonia's population presents two very unique characteristics:  “a world record in life expectancy and an extremely low birth rate”, a society “at the vanguard of demographics that has been saved by the increase in immigration”. He went on to say that at the CED, “we are followers of the 'Cabretian' school that refuses to label demographics with adjectives, but it is clear that the three demographic challenges of the future are population volume, age structure and origin of this population”.

Minister Joaquim Nadal highlighted the contributions of the centre in “fundamental issues affecting social dynamics, the relation between economy and population, the impact of demography on the economy, etc.”. The head of Research and Universities defined the CED as a “tool of the past, present and future, which if it did not exist would have to be urgently created by the Government of Catalonia”.

Document "La Catalunya dels 8 milions"

The event also served to present the document La Catalunya dels 8 milions, by UAB sociology lecturer and director of the CED Albert Esteve. The document shows Catalonia's current population and how it has evolved, from a demographic point of view and also in aspects such as life expectancy, fertility, the weight of migration and ageing, among other things.

The document concludes that "in the 1940s, 20% of inhabitants had been born elsewhere and Catalonia was considered a 'land of passage', and in the 1970s a 'land of refuge'; Catalonia today can only be understood as a 'land of immigrants'. International immigration is the huge star in the growth of the country (by continents, the majority of migrants come from Latin American countries, with 44.8% of registered inhabitants born abroad in 2022, but by countries, Morrocca-born migrants are the greatest in number, with 266,000 registered inhabitants, a total of 15%).

POPULATION  VERSUS THE REST OF SPAIN
Catalonia has undergone an increase in population percentage within Spain, from 11% in 1900 to over 16% in 2023. There were four large waves of migration, the first two in the 20th century (1910-1929 and 1950-1976), with immigration arriving from Spain, and the last two (2000-2008 and 2016-2022) more focused on international immigration.

MIGRATION
Migration as a whole in the 21st century in Catalonia has contributed 1.5 million people to the population, versus a little over 200,000 people in natural growth, which has even fallen to negative numbers in the past few years. "Without this extraordinary volume of migration the demographic evolution of the country cannot be understood, and the same goes for the economic, social, cultural, etc. evolution".

ORIGEN OF THE POPULATION
In 2021, the 2.8 million people born outside of Catalonia (56.5% outside of Spain), must be added to the 2.3 million who, having been born in Catalonia, have a mother or father born outside of Catalonia (74.2% with a mother or father born in other parts of Spain). The percentage represented by immigrants and descendents is therefore 65.8% of the total population. Moreover, if one adds a third generation born in Catalonia, with both parents also born in Catalonia, but with a grandfather or grandmother born elsewhere, almost three out of every four residents of Catalonia are directly or indirectly a product of the migrations occurring in the 20th and 21st centuries.

INTERNATIONAL IMMIGRATION
International immigration is the big star of migrant growth. Almost all countries of the world are represented in the 1.7 million people born abroad and registered as residing in Catalonia.

In terms of continents, Latin American migrants represent 44.8% of registered inhabitants having been born abroad in 2022, far ahead of the 22.1% of Europeans, 20.8% of Africans, and 11.3% of Asians. In contrast, in terms of countries of birth, those born in Morocco are the first large group of migrants, with 266,000 registered inhabitants, representing 15% of all those born abroad. Following them are 121,000 born in Colombia (6.8%) and 98,000 born in Argentina (5.5%).

AREAS IN WHICH FOREIGN-BORN INHABITANTS ARE CONCENTRATED
People born abroad congregate where working opportunities are many and varied: in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, county capitals and seaside towns. Thus, the city of Barcelona, with a population of 477,700 people having been born abroad, leads the 2022 ranking (29.2% in total), followed by L'Hospitalet de Llobregat with 87,900 (33.1%) and Badalona with 44,300 (19.8%).

In relative terms, a wide variety of cities stand out. For example, the industry of agrofood transformation makes Guissona the town with the largest percentage of foreign-born population (49.2%), followed by townms depending heavily on tourism, residential suppliers and intensive agriculture such as Castelló d'Empúries (47.1%), and border-related activities such as in La Jonquera (44.3%).

LIFE EXPECTANCY
Since the beginning of the past century life expectancies of Catalonians has more than doubled, and are currently among the highest in the world, around 81 years for men and 86 for women.

There has been an increase in both surviving these advanced ages and in the number of years still left to live after these ages, which can be seen clearly in the female population. Thus, mortality for the 1981-1982 period was 61% of Catalan women living until they reached 80 and still having 7.1 years to live, while in the two-year period of 2021-22, the number rose to 79% of those reaching 80, with 10.8 years still left to live.

FERTILITY
Most recent data demonstrates a new phase in the decline in fertility, reaching under 1.2 children per woman in 2022, due to the moderation of migration flows from abroad and a growing difficulty to concieve after reaching 30, which once again shows an increase in the age in which women have children. This fertility model will cause current generations to include a significant number of women who do not have children although they wish to and a significant decrease in the amount of children women have as opposed to the number they desire. This is what is known as "fertility deficit".

AGEING
In the coming decades, there will be an extension and intensification of the process of ageing, affecting particularly seaside and metropolitan populations. The population in all of Catalonia of people aged 16 and younger in 2022 is 15.5 %, but in more than a fifth of all towns this number is below 12%, basically inland and in the mountain regions of the Pyrenees.

The other side to this story are the older people who are at a relative percentage of 19.3 % in Catalonia, but who represent more than one in every four people in many parts of inland Lleida and Tarragona.

Academic event at the UAB-Casa Convalescència

The commemoration of 40 years of the CED continues tomorrow, Tuesday 13 February, with an academic event at the UAB-Casa Convalescència in Barcelona, where three global hot topics will be on debate: ageing, migrations and family. The questions to be discussed are: What are the main consequences of an ageing population? Are we too many migrants? What will families be like in the future?

These three issues are the main lines of research conducted by the CED. For this reason, three distinguished experts in international demographic research were invited to speak with three researchers from the CED, each of them experts in one of the lines of research. 

Programme of the academic event to be held on 13 February: https://ced.cat/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/newsletter-13-2.pdf