Population Decline in Inland Spain. The Province of Ciudad Real as Example

Abstract

Population decline of a large part of the rural municipalities of inland Spain is one of the main demographic problems currently. To proposal and implement possible solutions, it is necessary to develop in-depth diagnoses on the problem, prioritizing the lines of action to be applied in the most sensitive territories. This paper deals with the process of population decline in Ciudad Real province as an example of this rural inland Spain, which continues to lose population. Through the analysis of the micro-data of the Municipal Padrón de Habitantes and the micro-data of the Statistics of Residential Variations as main sources of information, a methodology based on the analysis of short-, medium- and long-term depopulation is proposed using, among other tools, the annual growth rate and emphasizing, in particular, the behavior of residential variations in the face of the situation of stagnation of natural growth in recent years.