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AI Summary. Spain's population growth between 2000 and 2025 was almost entirely (98%) driven by immigration, as natural population increase (births minus deaths) was negligible; since deaths have exceeded births since 2015, all future population growth depends entirely on continued immigration.
Nicholas Eberstadt American Enterprise InstituteCore argument: Immigration drove 98% of Spain’s population growth from 2000–2025—delivering the EU’s largest absolute population gain over that period—while natural increase contributed fewer than 200,000 net births across 25 years, less than 0.5% of Spain’s 2000 population.
Without immigration, Spain’s population would have stagnated in the first quarter of the 21st century. According to official Spanish data, births exceeded deaths by barely 200,000 for the 2000-2025 period (2025 numbers still provisional)—or less than one half of 1% of Spain’s 2000 population. Thanks to its robust immigration inflows, however, Spain registered more population growth than any other EU country between 2000 and 2025. Virtually all (98%) of Spain’s population growth was due to immigration during those years. And since deaths have exceeded births in Spain since 2015, any future growth would have to come entirely from additional immigration.AI Summary. Spain's recent economic growth and job creation have been driven largely by immigration, with roughly 70% of new jobs since 2019 going to immigrants. This reliance reflects a fertility rate of just 1.1 births per woman — the lowest in the EU after Malta — and a domestic workforce increasingly
Barney Jopson, Alan Smith and Irene de la Torre Arenas Financial TimesCore argument: Four Ways Europe’s Big Immigration Experiment Has Changed Spain.
Over the past two years, Spain has been the world’s fastest-growing large advanced economy and an engine of EU job creation. Since 2020, it has been responsible for one in four of the 11.1mn new jobs added across the bloc, according to FT analysis. Roughly 70% of those have gone to immigrants, according to Funcas, a think-tank, which has examined the period since 2019. Spain’s unemployment rate remained the second highest in the EU at 10.3% in March. Juan Félix Huarte, chair of Uriel Investments, whose businesses range from waste management to renewables, says immigrants have become vital for the country’s economy for two underlying reasons. One is Spain’s fertility rate of 1.1 births per woman, the lowest in the EU after Malta and little more than half the rate of 2.1 needed to maintain demographic stability. “The Spanish, unfortunately, don’t have children. We have pets, but we don’t have children,” Huarte says. The other reason, he says, is that many young Spaniards are disinclined to take arduous jobs: “We’re getting society far too used to government assistance, to grants, to support from the state.”