The migratory exodus from Andalusia: Jaén and Córdoba, the most affected

Enrique Guijarro was a teenager when, along with his family, he was forced to leave his home in the village of Los Centenares, deep in the Sierra de Segura of Jaén. Along with him, another 4,500 native mountain people suffered forced exile due to the expropriation policies of the Franco administration, which put the National Hunting Reserve before the maintenance of these rural areas. “In my case I had to leave because of the institutional harassment that my family suffered, but the majority of people had to emigrate because of the abandonment to which these villages were condemned,” says Guijarro, 68, from La Pobla de Farnals ( Valencia), where he arrived with his family at the beginning of the seventies of the previous century.

The Institute of Statistics and Cartography of Andalusia (IECA) has just put the number of Andalusians residing in the rest of Spain at 1,285,289 in 2023. 54% of this Andalusian exodus occurred in the provinces of Jaén, Córdoba and Granada, the most affected by the depopulation suffered by the interior of the Andalusian community. The IECA

Andalusians in the rest of Spain

study highlights that just over 55% of Andalusians residing in the rest of the country are concentrated in the provinces of Barcelona (29.8%), Madrid (19.2%), and Balearic Islands (6.5%). By age, 50.2% of these emigrants are 65 or older and 2% are under 15.

One in every five Andalusian emigrants (around 250,000) who reside outside their community come from the province of Jaén, without a doubt the one that suffers the demographic bleeding most virulently. In the last decade, more than 47,000 inhabitants have been lost and 80 of its 97 municipalities are bleeding year after year. “This is a direct result of the policies of abandonment and disregard that the big parties have been carrying out for decades,” says Juan Afán, a businessman from Jaén who chairs the citizen platform Jaén Deserves More. Afán was at the head of the demonstration five years ago with which was presented the so-called Revolt of Empty Spain.

“Jaén is not Empty Spain, the olive grove is helping to establish the population,” says Domingo Bonillo, mayor of Carboneros (Jaén), a town with less than 600 inhabitants next to the Andalusia highway where attempts are now being made to replicate the repopulation policies that In the 18th century they led Carlos III to promote the New Towns of Sierra Morena.

The province of Jaén has lost 3.38% of its census over the past four decades, a drop that contrasts with the increase that the rest of the Andalusian territories have had (the average for the community has been 32.66%). but far from the declines that have occurred in provinces such as Ourense (-28.8%), Zamora (-26.3%) or Lugo (-19.84%), the most depopulated in the last half century. However, the worst thing in these areas is the unflattering forecasts for the coming years. In Jaén, for example, the IECA predicts that nearly 100,000 inhabitants will emigrate before 2050, while in Córdoba it is estimated that up to 52,000 residents will be lost.

Córdoba is the second Andalusian province with the most people living outside the community. In total, 217,737 Cordobans lived, at the beginning of 2023,

spread throughout the rest of Spain, while the people of Granada equal the statistics of the people of Cordoba with an exodus of another 217,000 people. Four out of every 10 emigrants from this province are young people between 20 and 34 years old.

What affects the most is what happens closest. So you don't miss anything, subscribe.

Subscribe

At the other extreme, Huelva is the province with the fewest people spread throughout the rest of the country, with only 49,911 Huelva residents outside Andalusia (3.9% of the total community). “We do not see that the administrations intend to end the historical debt in investments and that we have the same opportunities that are given to other territories and all this is a loop that causes the forced emigration of our young people who go to look for work. to other provinces, something that should never happen,” says Juan Manuel Camacho, president of the political party Jaén Deserves More.

Regarding migrations outside of Spain, at the beginning of 2023, 317,642 people with Spanish nationality registered in Andalusia were residing abroad, which is 1.2% more than in 2022. Málaga, Granada and Almería accounted for 23%, 19% and 16%, respectively, of Andalusians residing abroad. Regarding residential variations in this territory, the latest official statistics available is from the year 2021, when 159,302 movements into the autonomous community and 116,775 out were recorded, resulting in a positive migration balance of 42,527 people.

Depopulation continues its unstoppable course

The groups that are part of the Empty Spain platform have proposed declaring March 31 as European Day for the Fight against Depopulation. On March 31, 2019, a large demonstration took place in Madrid in the so-called Revolt of Empty Spain, originally promoted by Teruel Existen, Soria YA and Jaén Deserves More. 

All of them now remember that, five years later, the situation, far from improving, has worsened: “Depopulation continues its relentless course, accentuating territorial imbalances and relegating rural problems to the background in state and regional policies,” They indicated in the manifesto that was read a few days ago in several towns in inland Spain.

The groups that are part of the Emptied Spain are showing at a national level on this anniversary the need to keep up the pulse to remember that the political class must seek greater attention to the forgotten Spain and in order to meet the European criteria of balance territorial and socioeconomic convergence. They also complain about the limited arrival of European funds to these rural territories.

_