Spain is the second largest country receiving immigrants from the European Union between 2017 and 2020, according to data from the recent study “Immigration in Spain” conducted by the School of Business. TBS Education – Barcelona . Germany is in first place. Spain receives an average of more than 400,000 international migrants annually, reaching 666,022 in 2019, before the pandemic hit.
Spain has twice the European average of immigrants per year. In 2020, Germany was the European country that received the most immigrants (994,819), followed by Spain (415,150), France (200,495), Italy (191,766) and the Netherlands (170,612). Belgium (101,553) received fewer immigrants than Poland (143,512), Austria (121,311) and Portugal (118,724), but more than Sweden (65,789) and Greece (63,357).
It is also important to note that the gap between the countries receiving the most immigrants and the least is narrowing. In 2017, there was a difference of about 1,380,000 immigrants between Germany and Slovakia, the countries with the highest and lowest numbers of foreign immigrants, and this difference has been decreasing over the years.
Migration also includes internal flows of people between different regions of the same country. In Spain, the immigration of Spaniards within Spanish territory increased by 41% between 2017 (532,132 immigrants) and 2019 (750,480 immigrants). Then, during the pandemic year 2020, annual immigration in Spain decreased by 36% from 750,480 migrants to 467,918 migrants. In 2021, the year after the pandemic was prevented, annual migration grew to 530,401.
The autonomous region of Castilla-La Mancha saw a 70% increase in the number of migrants it received between 2017 and 2019. On the other hand, the Canary Islands was the region with the least increase in the number of migrants (14%) between 2017 and 2019. Meanwhile, the region that experienced the largest decline in the number of residents who migrated between 2017 and 2021 (-29%). Catalonia, Madrid, Andalusia, Valencia and the Canary Islands together account for more than 74% of the total national and international migration in Spain. These are the five autonomous regions that attract the largest share of the total number of immigrants in Spain, whether they are local, international or foreign.
related immigration By gender and age, young foreigners between the ages of 15 and 29, male and female, are the most migratory group to Spain. In the case of men, this number decreased by 3% between 2017 and 2021, while for women it increased by 19%. On the other hand, in these years there has been a sharp decrease of 22% in the number of older men migrating from abroad.
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