One in four people born and currently residing in Spain lives in a different community from their own, exactly 25.10%, just over 10 million. The Canary Islands is the community with the lowest mobility, with 95.84% of those born in the Canary Islands living in their community, according to the latest revision of the continuous census statistics of the INE, as of January 1, 2022.
The opposite occurs in regions such as Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León, as well as in Ceuta and Melilla. 36.41% of people born in Extremadura who still reside in Spain today - that is, not counting those who have emigrated abroad - do so in another community, as do 35.02% of those from Castilla-La Mancha and 33.71% of those from Castilla y León. These percentages are even higher for those born in Melilla (43.93%) and Ceuta (36.99%).
On the other hand, the autonomous communities in which more people born in them continue to live are the Canary Islands (95.84%), the Valencian Community (92.70%), Catalonia (91.99%), the Balearic Islands (91.52%), Galicia (87.60%) and Murcia (86.93%).
In addition to these six, the territories in which a greater proportion of their natives remain there are Navarre (84.46%), Andalusia (84.27%), the Basque Country (84.24%), Madrid (83.92%), Asturias (83.77%), Cantabria (82.86%), Aragon (81.09%) and La Rioja (77.18%).
Internal migration multiplies external migration by 12
These figures highlight the importance of internal emigration compared to that of Spaniards abroad, since in total there are 853,779 people born in Spain - also according to data from the National Institute of Statistics as of January 1, 2022, in this case from the analysis of the Spanish Population residing abroad - who live in other countries, almost 12 times less.
Of these, six out of ten are originally from only four communities: Galicia (146,423, 17.15% of the total), Catalonia (126,296, 14.79%), Madrid (120,794, 14.15%) and Andalusia (117,251, 13.73%).
Next on this list are Castilla y León (61,962, 7.26%), the Valencian Community (54,970, 6.44%), the Canary Islands (36,837, 4.31%), the Basque Country (36,524, 4.28%), Asturias (31,741, 3.72%), Castilla-La Mancha (21,826, 2.56%), Aragon (19,619, 2.30%) and Murcia (19,032, 2.23%).
Less than 2% of the total number of people born in Spain who have gone to other countries represent Extremadura (16,563, 1.94%), the Balearic Islands (11,565, 1.35%), Cantabria (10,699, 1.25%), Navarre (10,450, 1.22%), La Rioja (5,034, 0.59%), Melilla (4,162, 0.49%) and Ceuta (2,031, 0.24%).
In the Balearic Islands and Madrid, almost half are foreigners
The INE data also allows us to know where the residents in each community were born, and in this statistic, Extremadura, Galicia and Andalusia stand out as the regions with the highest proportion of native inhabitants, with 85.02, 84.54 and 82.67%, respectively.
On the opposite side are the Balearic Islands and Madrid, where only 54.00% and 56.09% of their inhabitants, respectively, were born there, and to a lesser extent the Valencian Community (65.77%), La Rioja (64.63%) and Catalonia (63.69%).
Between both extremes oscillate the remaining nine autonomous communities: Castilla y León (79.89%), Asturias (78.78%), Cantabria (72.99%), Murcia (72.46%), the Basque Country (71.27%), the Canary Islands (71.02%), Aragon (70.70%), Castilla-La Mancha (68.65%) and Navarre (67.51%).
The flows of internal migration have caused, for example, 15.75% of people born in Castilla-La Mancha, 13.16% in Extremadura and 12.84% in Castilla y León to currently reside in Madrid.
The same occurs in Catalonia, where 7.55% of those born in Extremadura, 7.35% in Aragon and 6.14% in Andalusia have moved; or in the Valencian Community, which now hosts 9.00% of those from Extremadura.
Translated into population, these internal movements mean that more than half a million Andalusians by birth (511,847) live in Catalonia, in addition to another quarter of a million (250,454) who reside in Madrid.
In this community also live 366,816 people from Castilla y León, 341,502 from Castilla-La Mancha and 185,468 from Extremadura, and in Catalonia 107,832 people from Castilla y León, 106,462 from Extremadura, 84,952 from Aragon and 82,528 from Castilla-La Mancha.
In some cases, the exchange of population between communities is a two-way street, as occurs with the 236,097 people born in Madrid who now reside in Castilla-La Mancha.
Labor reasons and geographical proximity
Adolfo Maza, professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Cantabria, has said in statements to Efe that Madrid is the first destination from almost all provinces, including some in the north and south, and also Catalonia, especially Barcelona, especially from nearby provinces, and the island communities, in this case for non-labor reasons.
In the country as a whole, labor reasons are the main reason for emigration, although there are other factors, such as the price of housing, behind residential transfers, especially from large cities to more affordable bordering areas in other provinces, in a phenomenon that, in the absence of data to confirm it, may have been influenced by the rise of teleworking due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as Maza has indicated.
As in this type of migration, the also member of the Spanish Association of Regional Science and president of the Cantabrian Association has pointed out that "distance has a great influence" and, with the aforementioned exception of Madrid, "migrations are mostly to neighboring provinces."
