Whether digital nomads contribute economically to local villages is a fine question.
But - what is happening to Spain? It has among the lowest fertility in Europe and has only avoided collapse in population through migration form LATAM and North Africa. Why is spain suffering from this?
What's happening in the villages is a symptom of something larger.
It’s happening not just in Spain but across most of Europe, the USA, and East Asia. But lots of Europe and the USA have immigration to offset the population decline. China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, are in dramatic population declines. Even India has stared to level off and expected to decline.
To degrees, but Spain's fertility rate is appalling even by modern western standards. ~1.1 vs ~1.6 in the US. It's a huge difference and closer to the East Asia collapses than to the US.
One thing to look for in the EU is free movement of people. Young people can and do migrate to regions that pay them more. It would be interesting to look at Spanish youth migration to see if the younger workers (i.e. those more likely to have children) have moved elsewhere. That would create a further dent on the stats.
Isn't Spain one of the desired places for young people in Europe? I always saw people going to Spain, Germany or Switzerland for bigger salaries (e.g., people emigranting from Portugal)
I believe (perhaps incorrectly) that the GP was asking should population just keep increasing .. many people have been looking to slow population growth for some time and would see it finally starting to slow and perhaps peak and then fall in 2050 as a good outcome.
I consider this a typical case of statisticians massaging the data. In fact, I believe the Gini coefficient itself is flawed modeling. Even statisticians don't really use it much these days, right? The Gini index on Wikipedia actually reflects consumption inequality.
Also, high-fertility countries fundamentally have low contraception usage, low women's rights, and short periods of education. This is because labor is crucial in typical agrarian to light-industry economies.
Conversely, low-fertility countries are characterized by extended education and delayed job stability. The reason is simple: work that generates high added value requires a significant amount of time spent on education. Generally, the OECD doesn't view the decline in fertility rates in developed countries as being driven by just a single variable either.
Rather, there is a clear established relationship: higher housing costs correspond to a lower TFR (Total Fertility Rate) [1]. Classes exempt from these housing expenses—namely, individuals whose parents hold substantial real estate and assets—clearly have more children.
Actually, this kind of research has been conducted extensively in East Asian countries like Korea and Japan, yielding very similar conclusions.
> Rather, there is a clear established relationship: higher housing costs correspond to a lower TFR (Total Fertility Rate) [1]. Classes exempt from these housing expenses—namely, individuals whose parents hold substantial real estate and assets—clearly have more children.
This report is 122 pages. A cursory search did not turn up anything to support either of your claims. What page of the report are you drawing this conclusion from?
>
Fertility
The total fertility rate (TFR) indicates the average number of children born per woman over a lifetime given current age‑specific fertility rates, assuming no female mortality during reproductive years. The population is replaced at a total fertility rate of about 2.1 children per woman.
Let's consider programming, which represents an entry into a high value-added industry.
To monetize programming, you fundamentally need to offer something more valuable than existing open-source software, or target a niche that open-source fails to address. However, this industry has now matured, and countless talented young individuals in the US have already contributed heavily to the open-source ecosystem.
As a result, it is exceedingly difficult for developers in non-English speaking countries to sell programs that are inferior to free open-source alternatives. This is exacerbated by the very nature of software, which can be instantly and perfectly replicated.
(Physical capital, on the other hand, is much easier for the establishment to control through protectionism. For instance, to foster the growth of Hyundai Motors, my country, South Korea, restricted American car imports, effectively forcing citizens to drive lower-quality domestic cars. That kind of national sacrifice was required.)
Consequently, citizens of non-English speaking countries face a double burden: the time required to master English, added to the time needed to learn programming and accumulate foundational experience. By the time they build this experience and reach a stable level of professional competency, they are typically in their early 30s. This inherently forces a delay in marriage and family formation.
I find that unlikely, as it happens in countries with somewhat balanced wealth as well (and countries with the highest fertility rates have the highest wealth imbalance).
I generally don't think highly of people who make this argument. It relies on the simplistic framing of the "end of absolute poverty." In fact, this is the exact same rhetoric used by CCP apologists. While it is true that the modern poor enjoy better consumption, this argument completely ignores the economic concepts of positional goods and relative deprivation.
Consider the biological imperative of finding a mate. The competitive factors for securing a partner are now broadcast and scaled across the entire society. The core of what kings of old enjoyed wasn't "air conditioning" or "refrigerators." Kings owned territory (real estate), wielded power, and monopolized the infrastructural capital that allowed them to pass down an overwhelming survival advantage to their lineage. Does a modern immigrant live like a king just because they use an iPhone? The modern poor merely consume cheap manufactured goods; they have been completely stripped of the physical foundation required to form a family (housing) and the control over their generational reproduction.
The idea that Elon Musk amassing wealth has nothing to do with the working class is laughable. When wealth concentrates at the very top, that capital inevitably flows into supply-constrained, zero-sum assets—namely, real estate in prime locations and elite educational opportunities. Why do you think the cost of living in Silicon Valley is so absurdly high? The capital accumulated by billionaires like Musk and other asset holders astronomically pumps up (inflates) the prices of these "positional goods."
Human family formation is not determined by comparing oneself to a 16th-century serf. It is strictly determined by one's "relative status" within their contemporary community. No matter how much absolute caloric intake increases, if you cannot secure the asset advantage required to raise a child to a "middle-class standard" within your current community, a rational human being will simply give up on reproduction.
I would think the argument is more that the average worker living under a king would not even own their property, but would be renting a hovel, living in abject squalor, and having lots of children in order to bring in enough to pay the rent and taxes.
I know for sure in which timeline I'd prefer to be the average worker.
EDIT: For clarity, in no way am I simping for the billionaire class. I think it'll have to change. But people who think serfs in the middle ages had it better are crazy.
??The statistics speak for themselves. In Spain, the top 1% holds 21% of the total wealth, 30% of the low-income demographic are the working poor, and 45% are irregular workers.
Isn't the US in a similar situation? Regardless of other arguments, when you consider the OECD statistics demonstrating the impact of housing costs on fertility rates, I firmly believe that wealth inequality is indeed the root cause.
it has happened what it's happening in almost all the world, at different speeds. It's a combination of factors, economic, cultural, gender roles and general societal expectations (secularization, individualism, self-realization over family, etc.)
Particular factors in Spain compared to other European countries are: chronically high unemployment rates, especially among the younger ones, low salaries and exploitation at the start of the career and general work culture with little respect of workforce (you are always replaceable, be thankful to your bosses). This makes children very unaffordable, people wait until they are "stable enough", which never happens.
The issue with these small towns in Southern Europe is that they don't offer services, because they are abandoned. No schools, no shops, no hospitals... you end up being isolated, struggle for a lot of basic needs, and you leave. Not enough people -> less and less services, and the cycle goes on. There may be a few exceptions of course.
The same reason Italy, Portugal, and Greece are - they never fully recovered from the Eurozone collapse, and as a result were unable to completely climb up the value chain on time.
> has only avoided collapse in population through migration form LATAM and North Africa
Spain's TFR is still in the 1.0 to 1.2 range and it's median age is still amongst the oldest in Europe (44.5).
> LATAM
It's still not attractive for much of LatAm. Much of the current LatAm wave in Spain and Italy is from Venezuela or Colombia, and most Venezolanos who could use immigration by descent have largely immigrated already.
Spain doesn't have the same pull factor for LatAm that Canada or even the US still does thanks to higher incomes and pre-existing diaspora networks - especially given that Spain is still dealing with an ongoing braindrain to Western and Northern Europe.
And any immigration from LatAm (excluding Venezuela) irrespective of Europe or NAM is fleeting as much of LatAm has developmentally caught up with Eastern and parts of Southern Europe.
> they never fully recovered from the Eurozone collapse
Fertility seems independent from anything economy related: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/esp/spa... , it happened well before 2008, and today it is only oscillating around the same 1.2 number. The same as many other rich countries.
> It's still not attractive for much of LatAm. Much of the current LatAm wave in Spain and Italy is from Venezuela or Colombia
Spain has Latam inmigration for each an every spanish speaking country in America: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inmigraci%C3%B3n_en_Espa%C3%B1... . There is no clear skew towards Venezuela or Colombia, other than being the biggest countries. Once normalized per population (i.e. a small country like Uruguay with 3 million people won't send 1 million to Spain), you find that Cuba, Paraguay, Ecuador or Uruguay are above Venezuela in inmigration rate to Spain, and Honduras and Dominican Republic are above Colombia. Only Mexico (they probably migrate to the US) and Peru (I don't know why) have very low inmigration to Spain.
> Spain doesn't have the same pull factor for LatAm that Canada
10% of current Spain population come from Latam. In Canada, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_immigration_statistics, the first Latam source of inmigration country is Mexico (0.25% of Canada population), Colombia 0.22%, El Salvador 0.14%, Chile 0.08%, Venezuela 0.08%... Overall, probably less than 2% Canada population comes from Latam. I find it very difficult to believe that Canada has more pull than Spain.
You seem to forget also that entering Spain means entering Schengen area: anyone coming from Latam that manages to come to Spain can "jump" to almost any other country in Europe except the UK without having to use a passport (including Norway, Iceland or Switzerland, that are not UE).
> You seem to forget also that entering Spain means entering Schengen area: anyone coming from Latam that manages to come to Spain can "jump" to almost any other country in Europe except the UK without having to use a passport (including Norway, Iceland or Switzerland, that are not UE).
Eh, not quite: once you become a Spanish national, yes, but just because there aren't internal border controls doesn't actually entitle you to turn entry or residence in Spain into entry or residence in another Schengen country.
A lot of good answers to which I'd like to contribute a personal understanding as someone from the euro south:
These countries were decimated by free trade. A significant amount of the populace is not interested in having a "career" and follow a race to the bottom by competing 24/7. I would say culturally they are incompatible the the free marketeering that has been going on in the past decades.
We need to get protectionism back up and running. Work is a necessary evil that needs to take as little of our life as possible.
> We need to get protectionism back up and running.
We have known since Bastiat that this makes both sides poorer, because it also clobbers your export industry due to retaliation. And, unless you're willing to forgo iPhones and petrol, you're dependent on imports anyway.
> And, unless you're willing to forgo iPhones and petrol, you're dependent on imports anyway.
I think many people who argue for "protectionism" and the like would find that an acceptable price to pay. See the other comment about "relative status". I think many would like to have less in an absolute sense if that meant they were relatively less poor than "the rich".
Now I, personally, think that's just rose-tinted glasses. For example, nowadays, farmers in France have it rough. But I doubt that some peasant from 2-300 years ago actually had a better life and had less wealth difference compared to the upper-class of their time.
>We need to get protectionism back up and running. Work is a necessary evil that needs to take as little of our life as possible.
That attitude isn't compatible with paying decent pensions to an ever-growing retired fraction of the population. Someone has to work hard to fund them.
But - what is happening to Spain? It has among the lowest fertility in Europe and has only avoided collapse in population through migration form LATAM and North Africa. Why is spain suffering from this?
What's happening in the villages is a symptom of something larger.