2012/10/26 by Jordi Bayona‐i‐Carrasco, Jordi Bayona i Carrasco, Fernando Gil‐Alonso +1 · 74 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Social Sciences · #Boom #Demographic economics #Demography #Development economics #Economic geography #Economic growth #Economics #Geography #Immigration #Migration, Aging, and Tourism Studies #Nationality #Political science #Population #Population growth #Rural development and sustainability #Socioeconomics #Sociology #Tourism #Typology #Urbanization and City Planning
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9523.2012.00577.x
published in Sociologia Ruralis 53(1), 26-51 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2012/10/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Abstract This article analyses, from a demographic perspective, how foreign immigration has affected C atalan municipalities under 1000 inhabitants. After decades losing population, this group of villages is, despite its on‐going negative natural growth rate, recently regaining population due to immigration. Nevertheless, not all these municipalities have followed the same path. The local population register or P adrón has been used to build a typology which classifies these villages on the basis of their S panish and foreign population growth between 1996 and 2009. Results show that, despite practically all of them receiving foreign immigrants, approximately half still decrease in population or have poor increases. Therefore, the international immigration boom has emphasised the spatial dichotomy between a few dynamic rural areas and the rest, which largely occupy inland C atalonia. Only tourist municipalities, mainly receiving foreign immigrants, and those located near urban centres, basically benefiting from S panish nationality suburban flows, have been able to clearly put an end to depopulation.