Michael Coy
GIVING birth to a baby in Granada in 2025 could prove lucrative.
The provincial government of Granada announced a 1,000-euro “gift” for every baby born this year in the “towns at risk.”
This was followed on Wednesday by the city council, offering 200 euros for any baby born in the provincial capital during 2025. The idea is, of course, to reverse the trend of falling populations.
The mayor of Granada, Marifrán Carazo, announced the “Living Granada Baby Bonus” as a retort to the province’s “Baby Cheque” announcement – and no, it’s not possible to get double money: the baby must be born EITHER in Granada city OR in one of the endangered villages. Adoptions qualify, for the cash gift, as births.
The province has seen a trend in recent years of people selling up in the capital city and moving to the surrounding villages in order to take advantage of the rapidly rising property prices in downtown Granada.
Suburban communities like Armilla, Maracena, and the two Gabias have grown quickly (each now has upwards of 20,000 residents), but some villages are threatened with collapsing numbers.
Overall, the province’s total population currently stands at 234,000: the plan is to raise it to a quarter of a million by 2030.
The other strategy is to lower prices. “Both purchase and rental prices have only increased under Pedro Sánchez’s government, something we are trying to address in this City Council,” said the mayoress, who added that, as a result, new apartments must be built in Granada, “especially subsidized housing.”
In this regard, there are already developments underway, mainly in areas such as Albayda and La Alquería.
“Adequate urban development” could also serve to further bolster the flagship project of the government led by Marifrán Carazo: to become the European Capital of Culture in 2031.
Growing “sustainably” would demonstrate the city’s “capacity for transformation,” something fundamental within the strategic plan for Granada’s bid.
The two villages that have been singled out as being “at risk” of depopulation are Lobras and Juviles. Both are situated in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, on the way to Almería.
According to the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, no less than half of Spanish towns and villages are at risk of extinction. In recent years, 4,995 of Spain’s 8,125 municipalities have survived with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants.
Most of these nearly 5,000 towns and villages suffer from the continued aging of their population and virtually non-existent generational turnover, with low or no birth rates.
At the same time, according to the population census published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), between 2011 and 2021, Spain’s population grew by 584,882 inhabitants, bringing its total to 47.4 million.
Half of the provinces have reduced their population, with Zamora in the north leading the list with 11.7%. Meanwhile, at the regional level, the ones that have grown the most are the Balearic Islands (7.5%), Madrid (4.7%), and the Canary Islands (4.6%), where the population tends to increase because that’s where the jobs are.
The two Granada villages in question, Lobras and Juviles, have lost population in the last ten years, according to 2022 INE data, and now have less than 150 inhabitants.
These towns are destined to disappear sooner rather than later. Lobras had 148 residents in 2002, but the number has now dropped to 135.
It’s a similar story in Juviles, which currently has 134 citizens. Twenty years ago, the figure was 161.
The birth rate in Granada (number of births per thousand inhabitants in a year) was 15.62 in 2022 (the last year for which statistics are available), and the fertility rate (average number of children per woman) was 1.99.
The fact that Granada has a fertility rate below 2.1 per woman (replacement fertility) means that a stable population pyramid is, in the diplomatic words of the actuaries, “not guaranteed.”
If we look at the evolution of the birth rate in Granada, we see that it has decreased compared to 2021, when it was 15.96%, as is the case when compared to 2012, when the birth rate was 17.9%.
So, if you want to help Spain, have more babies!
