Is the desire to get an education in Spain the reason for the extinction of Spanish villages?
The desire to get an education in Spain has become one of the reasons for the extinction of Spanish villages. Almost every young resident of the country has the opportunity to get an education in Spain. The desire to increase your level of knowledge in order to get a good job is considered commendable. However, there is a downside to this phenomenon. More than half of the 8,000 Spanish municipalities have fewer than a thousand inhabitants, and one of the reasons for this is that young people prefer to move to large cities where they can get an education and a job.
The demographic and social changes that have taken place in Spain over the past decade have led to the need for reforms affecting the entire society. The country is governed by the national Government in Madrid. In addition, each of the 17 autonomous regions has its own regional government. Most of these autonomies are divided into provinces. A person’s life depends on the decisions made by the government of his province, the regional government of the autonomy and the central government in Madrid.
However, difficulties arise when we take into account that there are 8,124 municipalities in Spain, each of which has its own mayor’s office. Some of these municipalities are huge, but there are also some where fewer than 10 people actually live. In this regard, the question arises whether it makes sense to support the activities of mayors and other administrative structures in such settlements. In Spain, a total of 4,983 municipalities have fewer than a thousand inhabitants.
The problem with tiny villages and towns is that their population is gradually decreasing. Young people are moving to larger cities in search of work and opportunities for a personal life. As a result, the number of people in small villages and towns is decreasing, the average age is increasing, and negative processes are increasing. The outflow of young people causes a decrease in the birth rate, which leads to the closure of schools, medical centers and other infrastructure facilities.
This situation is typical mainly for the central and northern regions of Spain and is less pronounced in the south. These small municipalities are located in Castile and Leon, Castile-La Mancha, Catalonia and Murcia.
Experts in the field of demography and sociology are wondering about the future of such microscopic municipalities. The deprivation of the status of a municipality will lead to the continuation of negative processes. However, trying to keep them is going against the flow. Spain is now becoming a country where large cities are getting even bigger and small ones even smaller. About 1,800 Spanish municipalities are on the verge of extinction. Getting an education entails moving to large cities, which provides young Spaniards with more opportunities for personal and professional growth.
