Existing empirical work has analysed the impacts of COVID-19 on mortality, fertility and international migration. Less is known about the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the patterns of internal migration. Anecdotal reports of mass migration from large cities to less populated areas have emerged, but lack of data has prevented empirically assessing this hypothesis. Drawing on geographically granular administrative population register data, we aim to analyse the extent of change in the patterns of internal migration across the urban hierarchy in Spain during 2020. Our results show a decline of 2.5% in the number of internal migration moves, particularly during the early stages of the pandemic, returning to prepandemic levels in late 2020. Results also reveal unusually large net migration losses in core cities and net migration gains in rural areas. Net migration losses in cities and gains in rural areas particularly accumulated following the elimination of the strict lockdown measures in June. Yet, these net losses and gains trended to pre-pandemic levels in late 2020, and movements between cities, and between cities and suburbs, continued to dominate the internal migration system. Thus, while the COVID-19 pandemic exerted notable changes in the geographic balance of internal migration flows, these changes appear to have been temporary and did not significantly alter the existing structures of the national migration system.

No abstract

Existing empirical work has analysed the impacts ofCOVID-19 on mortality, fertility and international migration. Less is known about the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the patterns of internal migration. Anecdotal reports of mass migration from large cities to less populated areas have emerged but lack of data has prevented empirically assessing this hypothesis. Drawing on geographically granular administrative population register data, we aim to analyse the extent of change in the patterns of internal migration across the urban hierarchy in Spain during 2020. Our results show a decline of 2.5% in the number of internal migration moves, particularly during the early stages of the pandemic, returning to pre-pandemic levels in late 2020. Results also reveal unusually large net migration losses in core cities and net migration gains in rural areas. Net migration losses in cities and gains in rural areas particularly accumulated following the easing of some non-pharmaceutical interventions. Yet, these net losses and gains trended to pre-pandemic levels in late 2020, and movements between cities, and between cities and suburbs, continued to dominate the internal migration system. Thus, while the COVID-19 pandemic exerted notable changes in the geographic balance of internal migration flows, these changes appear to have been temporary and did not significantly alter the existing structures of the national migration system.

El declive poblacional y el envejecimiento no solo afectan a las áreas rurales. El objetivo de este artículo es estudiar la dinámica demográfica de las capitales de provincia entre 2002 y 2019 y hacer una clasificación de ciudades en crecimiento, estancamiento y declive acorde al periodo de recuperación económica 2014-2019. Seguidamente, se analiza la contribución del saldo natural y diferentes tipos de migración a las tasas de crecimiento. Finalmente, se mide el cambio en la estructura de la población. Se emplea una metodología de análisis demográfico aplicada a los micro-datos del Padrón Municipal de Habitantes, el Movimiento Natural de la Población y la Estadística de Variaciones Residenciales. Se han identificado 15 capitales de provincia que muestran incipientes procesos de declive demográfico y envejecimiento, 7 de ellas en Castilla y León. Actualmente, la emigración de jóvenes hacia las grandes ciudades españolas y el saldo natural negativo constituyen los factores dominantes del declive poblacional, mientras que antes de 2008 fueron los procesos de sub-urbanización. En suma, estas capitales reciben un contingente limitado de extranjeros y un escaso aporte de población proveniente del medio rural. También se ha observado un notable envejecimiento de la población y un descenso importante de las generaciones en edad reproductiva. Las 11 capitales más dinámicas, sin embargo, han vuelto a crecer desde 2014 por inmigración extranjera, igual que antes de la crisis y, en menor medida, por migración interna desde otras ciudades.