Spain's foreign-born population now exceeds US historical records
Spain is approaching 20% foreign-born residents, above the US historical peak and comparable to Argentina's annual intake around 1900.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Spain: on a par with Argentina's 1900 immigration wave?
That is the question hanging over the public debate when current arrivals are compared with the great historical flows. The numbers, at first glance, give an uncomfortable answer: in Spain, the foreign-born population already accounts for roughly 20%, a share the United States never came close to even during its golden age of mass immigration. In the 1910s, the American country, with 92 million inhabitants, absorbed fewer than 400,000 immigrants a year, the equivalent of about 200,000 on Spain's scale. We are, at the very least, in the same league.
The Argentine mirror: another planet in numbers
Looking at Argentina is a different story. In 1904 it had barely five million inhabitants, and in a single decade it received inflows equivalent to 50% of its initial population. Nothing like the US records, or Spain's. But the mirror is useful for more than the figures: there, immigration was an orderly process, with dedicated offices, paid passage, medical examinations, registration and land allocation through institutions such as the Colonization Institute. The newcomers, moreover, arrived with trades and an agricultural vocation. The "level", as has been said, was higher.
The numbers are not everything
The Spanish comparison with the US and Argentina stops at the percentages. The nuance lies in absorptive capacity: countries with empty land and in the midst of internal industrialization could digest a pressure that today turns into social and demographic strain. And in the profile: today's arrivals are defined more by lack of qualifications and dependence on public services than by the chance to settle half a country.
So Spain is not repeating history: it is performing a version in which the hectares are missing and the paperwork is in excess supply. And meanwhile, the descendants of those Italians who invented words for Argentina wonder why the queues at the civil registry here don't raise their voices. Pure irony.
That is the question hanging over the public debate when current arrivals are compared with the great historical flows. The numbers, at first glance, give an uncomfortable answer: in Spain, the foreign-born population already accounts for roughly 20%, a share the United States never came close to even during its golden age of mass immigration. In the 1910s, the American country, with 92 million inhabitants, absorbed fewer than 400,000 immigrants a year, the equivalent of about 200,000 on Spain's scale. We are, at the very least, in the same league.
The Argentine mirror: another planet in numbers
Looking at Argentina is a different story. In 1904 it had barely five million inhabitants, and in a single decade it received inflows equivalent to 50% of its initial population. Nothing like the US records, or Spain's. But the mirror is useful for more than the figures: there, immigration was an orderly process, with dedicated offices, paid passage, medical examinations, registration and land allocation through institutions such as the Colonization Institute. The newcomers, moreover, arrived with trades and an agricultural vocation. The "level", as has been said, was higher.
The numbers are not everything
The Spanish comparison with the US and Argentina stops at the percentages. The nuance lies in absorptive capacity: countries with empty land and in the midst of internal industrialization could digest a pressure that today turns into social and demographic strain. And in the profile: today's arrivals are defined more by lack of qualifications and dependence on public services than by the chance to settle half a country.
So Spain is not repeating history: it is performing a version in which the hectares are missing and the paperwork is in excess supply. And meanwhile, the descendants of those Italians who invented words for Argentina wonder why the queues at the civil registry here don't raise their voices. Pure irony.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (19 replies).
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