Urban Exodus and Rural Renaissance? Migrations from cities and rural areas during the Covid-19 pandemic in Spain

Abstract

In this article we analyse the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on internal and external migration in urban and rural areas of Spain. The research addresses the evolution of migrations during three periods: the pre-pandemic stage (2016-2019), the most intense phase of the pandemic (2020-2021) and, for the first time, the post-pandemic period (2022). One of our objectives is to answer the question of whether, after the alteration in the intensity and spatial structure of flows during the peak phase of the health crisis, internal migration returns to pre-pandemic normality in 2022. The data used come from an unpublished exploitation of the microdata of the Residential Variation Statistics (RVS) for the period 2016-2021 and from the aggregate data of the new Statistics on Migrations and Changes of Residence (EMCR) that the INE has incorporated in 2023 to replace the RVS. We use a classification of Spanish municipalities into six categories that allow us to reduce the high municipal variability and for which we calculate different age-specific migration indicators such as Gross Migraproduction Rate (GMR). The results of our study show that, although after the pandemic the general trend of internal migration returns to pre-pandemic behaviour, the more accessible rural areas maintain a certain attractiveness, while the new engine of growth in all the areas analysed, including the remote rural areas, is external immigration, which is acquiring an unprecedented rate of inflows.