Facts and Factors on Low Fertility in Southern Europe The Case of Spain

During the final decades of the 20th Century, the countries in Southern Europe now belonging to the European Union (Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece) have experienced dramatic changes in all the demographic variables. Until the seventies, their mortality had been clearly worse than the European average, while nowadays their inhabitants enjoy a life expectancy ranking among the world’s highest, especially for females. On the other hand, for centuries, the four countries had been the origin of substantial flows of outmigrants going mainly to the New World, while between World War II and the crisis of the seventies the migrants changed destinations and went in great numbers to prosperous European countries. After 1975, this also changed and Southern Europe progressively became a land of attraction: migratory flows reversed, former migrants returned home and increasing flows of non-European migrants started changing the human landscape of these societies of highly homogeneous ethnicity. No matter how important the changes in mortality or in migration may have been, it is not because of them that Southern Europe is now under the microscope of demographers, but because of the sharp decline in fertility experienced during the seventies, the extremely low levels attained and the length of time these levels have prevailed. In fact, never has such a large region, with a population of over 120 millions, experienced such a low fertility for more than two decades. Recently, some new regions seem to be following in the steps of Southern Europe, such as countries in Eastern Europe, in former USSR and in Eastern and Southeast Asia. Some of them even show rates below the present data for Southern Europe and keep decreasing. Nevertheless, Southern Europe still holds the title for being considered the classical case in the study of what some authors call lowest low fertility, defined by a Total Fertility Rate under 1.3. Among the four countries considered, Spain offers the most extreme example. As shown in Figure 1, comparing fertility levels, Spain’s TFR amounted 2.8 to 3 children per woman throughout the period 1960-1975, well above the European average and substantially higher than the Italian and Greek fertility rates. Two decades later, in 1995, the TFR in Spain was 1.16, the lowest in the world that year as happened repeatedly during the nineties. Therefore, the decline of fertility in Spain was the sharpest and the level reached the lowest ever. From here on, to avoid getting lost in comparisons of cases that are really quite similar, only the case of Spain will be presented. In most aspects, though, the facts and factors mentioned for Spain might be generalised to the other three countries, Italy usually being the closest and Portugal the most unusual.