11% of babies born in Spain in 2024 are of Muslim origin: what it means for the economy

11% of babies born in 2024 had at least one Muslim parent: the seams of the Welfare State are showing

Is a demographic shift taking shape that no one wants to name? Microdata from Spain's statistics institute (INE) reveal that 11% of births in 2024 were babies with at least one Muslim-origin immigrant parent — almost always both, given the reproductive endogamy of that population. In regions such as Murcia, La Rioja and Catalonia the figure climbs to 19%, and in some provinces it exceeds that. The opinion piece recently published in El Mundo has peine Pandora's box: Spain is facing a change in its ethnic and religious composition whose economic consequences we are only beginning to glimpse.

Female employment: the gap nobody closes

The most uncomfortable figure for the sustainability of the pension system is the employment rate. While 70% of women of working age born in Spain work, those born in Africa barely reach 38%. A 32-point gap that cannot be explained by discrimination alone: it reflects cultural patterns of gender roles and lower participation in the formal labour market. In the third quarter of 2025, the overall employment rate for those born in Spain was 75%, compared with 67% for non-African immigrants and a meagre 51% for those born in Africa. Add to this that the Muslim-origin population is growing through births — even if immigration stopped, Jovenlandeses would mathematically be a majority among young people within three decades — and the impact on public finances is direct: more dependence on benefits and a smaller base of contributors.

Assimilation or fracture: the French mirror

France has spent decades watching its second generations of Maghrebi origin: the "beurs" and "beurettes" who, in many cases, have fully integrated into Western secular culture. But the process is not automatic. As Houellebecq reminds us in "Submission", social and religious pressure can push the other way. Spanish data suggest that endogamy and territorial concentration make mixing harder. Moreover, the ideological factor weighs in: while the native-born society becomes increasingly secular, Muslim communities tend to hold on to their traditions. The result is a breeding ground for identity tensions that, sooner or later, translate into economic costs — residential segregation, lower social mobility, labour-market ghettos.

Political silence and background noise

That El Mundo has published an opinion piece on this issue is telling. For years, mentioning the demographic evolution of the Muslim population was taboo in the mainstream media — dismissed as racism or alarmism. Today, the numbers are starting to speak for themselves. But the political class still fails to address the phenomenon with concrete policies: neither active integration, nor control of migration flows, nor incentives for native births. The debate is reduced to online outrage and empty slogans. Meanwhile, the demographic wheel keeps turning. Perhaps the most worrying thing is not the figure itself, but the inability to manage it before it is too late. Ironies of pogre: when the mainstream media finally decide to speak up, it is usually because the problem can no longer be reversed.