Manuel Ferrer Regales, Full Professor of Geography, University of Navarra, Spain.
Navarre and Spain. Immigration and emigration
In a deadline of twenty-five years, Navarre has become an ethnic society, as has Spain. This novelty, as is evident in our streets, in the countryside and in the city, as is evident in the gardens and promenades where we meet people of different origins and ethnicities, is the result of an emerging process during the last few years, although as a consequence of the crisis it is beginning to weaken. This does not prevent the issue and percentage of immigrants from being more than sufficient (around 70,000 in Navarre, a community with a total population of 638,038 inhabitants, which represents a percentage of 11%), sample clear that we have become an ethnic society in which some groups are predominant (Bulgarians, Ecuadorians, Romanians, Bolivians, Moroccans, etc.). In the future, it is foreseen that ethnicity will continue to prevail, so that in part we will be, we are already beginning to be, a mixed society, since the unions between the locals and the newcomers will tend to increase.
At the same time, the tendency to "slow down" population growth will continue over the next few years, accompanied by a phenomenon that is already taking place on a small scale but is likely to increase: more and more Navarrese will leave their homeland, driven by the lack of jobs at work (although we are in a privileged status compared to other regions).
Extending the scale to the whole of Spain, in which most autonomous regions are in an alarming status of unemployment and low expectations of work, that is, in a status much worse than ours, it is understood that emigration is an irreversible process. We are once again a country of emigrants, as was the case in the first half of the 20th century. issue And by this I am not referring to the return of immigrants, which is already taking place, but to the fact that we will once again be a country where the number of people seeking outside what they cannot find inside will increase.
It will be said that the crisis is also affecting our close European neighbors, but it should be added that without the drama of our particular case. However, it is important to bear in mind that Spanish labor is highly valued and preferred compared to other origins. We Spaniards have left a good memory wherever we have emigrated (at the beginning of the 20th century to South America, especially in the countries of the Southern Cone, especially Argentina). Then came the period of internal migrations, that is, large population movements from the rural world whose people moved to Catalonia and the Basque Country during the First Industrial Revolution (late nineteenth/early twentieth century), as well as during the Second Revolution (which began in the sixties of the twentieth century). In the latter, the places of destination were not only Catalonia and the Basque Country, but also the regions where the Second Industrialization began, including Navarre. The development of these regions would not have been possible without the immigration contribution, which minimizes relatively the crisis started in 2007.
It will probably be the regions of the northern half, with more or less unemployment, especially the urban areas, which already initiate the start of this process: they are and will be first the young people with programs of study who are willing to occupy positions of work that require a similar or even lower training than the one that corresponds to them. Immediately afterwards, emigration will affect, and already affects, a diversity of situations and professions, especially among the young and young-mature unemployed who have family or friendship connections with other EU countries and even overseas. There will be people with a high level of programs of study who will easily find suitable positions for their middle or higher programs of study .
Finally, these considerations are carried out in the framework of the uncertainty that brings with it a change of migratory expectations. Nevertheless, it can be affirmed that we are back to being, once again in our history, a country of emigrants who will certainly be required to do more than their predecessors in the past.