A growing population thanks to immigration
With 7,750,000 inhabitants at the beginning of 2022, Catalonia is demographically rather stable compared to the previous two years. Between 2019 and 2020, however, the territory had recorded a further increase in population (+1.34%). A movement that continues the trend set in the last ten years. With a small novelty, it is now the immigration from foreign countries that guarantees this demographic progression. Also previously provided by immigration from other regions of Spain, Andalusia and the Valencian Community for the most part, in recent years. It was in 2018 that its migratory balance with the rest of Spain was negative for the first time and this movement has continued since then. In Spain, it is the community whose population has grown the most, ahead of those of Madrid and the Valencian Community. On the other hand, like the rest of Spain, Catalonia has not escaped the aging of its population (1.4 million over 65 in 2018), again as a result of a falling birth rate and rising life expectancy. Population increase combined with aging, increase in foreign immigration, these different data marking the Catalan demography should be maintained in the coming decades if we believe the projections made by the Idescat (Statistical Institute of Catalonia). Published in 2018, they estimate the number of inhabitants that Catalonia would have in 2030 at 8 million and more than 8.77 million in 2060. These increases should always be due to the contribution of foreign immigration. Life expectancy is expected to reach 88 years for women and 83.2 for men (compared to 86.3 and 80.8 in 2016). Logically, this demographic evolution implies that a health care system adapted to this new age pyramid, where the over-65s (estimated at 22.3% of the total in 2030 and 29.8% in 2060), and even the over-85s, will increasingly predominate, can be put in place. And that the system will also be able to finance a constantly increasing number of pensions. In the short term, the study also estimates that the regions that will benefit from this demographic increase will be those along the coast: Girona, Barcelona and Tarragona, except for the Ebro coast. Today, more than half of the population of Catalonia lives in the Barcelona metropolitan area (the city and 25 kilometers around it). The second largest urban area is Reus-Tarragona. The rest of the population is distributed mainly around the Costa Brava, the Costa Daurada, the Llobregat valley and the cities of Lleida and Girona.
Catalan and Castilian, official languages
In Catalonia, two languages have the status of official languages, Castilian (Spanish) and Catalan. Although the latter is considered to be the language "proper" to Catalonia, as it originates from its historical territory. This situation is the result of a multi-stage process. Excluded under the Franco dictatorship, the use of Catalan first benefited from the legal status given to languages by the Spanish constitution of 1978. Article 3 of this constitution specifies that Castilian is "the official Spanish language of the State" and recognizes the other official languages of the various autonomous communities, in accordance with their status. On this basis, the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 1979 formalized Castilian and Catalan as official languages of Catalonia. The Statute of Autonomy of 2006 will then specify that "all people have the right to use both and that the citizens of Catalonia have the right and duty to know them." This statute also specifies that the proper language of Catalonia is Catalan and as such the Catalan language will be the language of "normal and preferential" use in public administrations and in the Catalan means of communication. It will also be used as a "vehicle" for education. In the same year, Aranese, the language spoken in the Valle d'Aran, will be considered the language of this territory and will also be an official language.
Different practices in different regions
Catalan is an Indo-European language that belongs to the Occitan-Romanic branch of the Romance languages. Like the other Romance languages, it is derived from "vulgar" Latin, the common language spoken by the Romans who settled in Hispania. In the way it is spoken in Catalonia, there are two main blocks: "northern" Catalan, which also includes "central" Catalan and can be heard in the "comarques" of the north and Barcelona, and "western" Catalan, which, further south in Catalonia, has similarities with Valencian. Although the use of Catalan has been maintained in absolute numbers between 1980 and 2010, it has decreased proportionally in the period from 2003 to 2008, mainly due to the high level of immigration (approximately 500,000 people in this period), 36% of whom speak Spanish. Nevertheless, Catalans today are generally bilingual and fluent in Catalan and Spanish. According to a 2015 study by the Generalitat's culture department, 94.3% of the Catalan population understood Catalan, 84.4% spoke it, 82.4% could read it and 60.4% could write it. According to the same study, 36.3% of the Catalan population spoke Catalan as their usual language, while 50.7% spoke Spanish. Nearly 7% indicated that both languages were familiar to them. This general result showed differences between regions. In five regions (including the regions of the province of Girona), more than 50% of the inhabitants considered Catalan to be their usual language (up to almost 74% in the Ebro region), while in the other three (Barcelona metropolitan area, Penedes and Tarragona camp), this percentage fell below 40% (-30% in the Barcelona metropolitan area). These figures reflect the presence of greater immigration, both from other parts of Spain and from Latin America.
