Balearic population growing but at a cost.

Balearic population growing but at a cost. | Majorca Daily Bulletin reporter

Humphrey CarterPalma19/12/2024 11:46
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The population of the Balearics has grown by 1.81% and has reached 1,231,768 inhabitants, according to the population census data released today by the National Statistics Institute (INE). With respect to the year 2021, the population of the region on 1 January 2024 has grown by more than 4%. Of the almost 1.3 million inhabitants of the Balearics, 613,910 are men and 617,858 are women.

By islands, Mallorca has 957,726 inhabitants (up 1.85%), Ibiza has 161,485 (+1.45%), Menorca has 101,074 (+2%) and Formentera has 11,483 inhabitants (+0.8%). Palma, for its part, reached 438,234 inhabitants after growing by 1.76% over the previous year. Of the total population of the Balearic capital, 349,991 (79.8%) are Spanish and 88,423 are foreigners (20.14%).

Palma is the only municipality in the Balearic Islands with more than 100,000 inhabitants. The population of Calvià has reached 53,826 inhabitants on 1 January 2024, Manacor 47,880, Santa Eulària des Riu 42,005, Marratxí 40,057, Llucmajor 39,809, Inca 35,396, Ciutadella 32,171, Mahón 30,643 and Sant Josep de Sa Talaia 30,480, which are the Balearic municipalities with more than 30,000 residents.

In general terms, the population of Spain stood at 48,619,695 inhabitants on 1 January 2024, with a growth of more than 500,000 people in one year. Of the population, 13.4% were foreign nationals and 18.2% were born outside Spain. The largest increases in foreigners during 2023 were among citizens of Colombia (124,566 more), Peru (47,598) and Venezuela (47,095). Torrevieja, Arrecife and Granadilla de Abona were the cities with the highest relative population growth in 2023.

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But, the Youth Institute (Injuve) has warned that Spain has been losing its young population for three decades: young people aged between 15 and 29 make up 15.9 % of the total population, compared to 24.9 % in 1991, as this group has shrunk by around two million. This is highlighted in the report ‘Youth in figures’, which indicates that Spain is below the European average for the youth population, which stands at 16.2% in the EU as a whole.

There are currently 7.6 million young people aged between 15 and 29, of whom 3.9 million are men and 3.7 million are women. In absolute terms it is the fourth country in the EU with the most young people, behind Germany (13.5 million), France (11.9 million) and Italy (8.8 million). However, the population’s weight in relation to the general population is languishing, despite a 3.15 % increase in the last year. Spain, with its 15.9 %, is far behind the youth population rates of countries such as Cyprus (19.8 %), Denmark (19.1 %) or the Netherlands (18.8 %).

Of the 7.6 million young people living in Spain, 16.62 % are of foreign origin, 1.27 million people, mainly from Morocco, Colombia, Romania, Venezuela and Italy. Injuve specifies that if we include in the group of young people those aged between 31 and 34, whom it defines as ‘in the condition of youth’, they make up 21.7 % of the total population in Spain, 10.4 million.

The geographical distribution of youth is uneven across the country: the highest rates are in Melilla (21.2 %), Ceuta (20.6 %), Region of Murcia (17.6 %), Canary Islands, Madrid and Balearics (all 16.7 %). Those with the least young population are Principado de Asturias (12 %), Galicia (12.9 %) and Castilla y León (13.4 %).