International retirement migration; official statistics; spatial distribution; Spain

Abstract

International retirement migration is currently one of the most significant movement of people in the European context. Spain has become one of the main destination countries for European retirees, hence the interest of Spanish social scientists in the analysis of this particular type of migration. The scarcity of information on the migration of retirees from northern to southern Europe has been the main barrier to the study of the extent of international and national retirement migration. Moreover, the lack of reliable official statistics has made research in this field extremely difficult. This paper discusses the sources of information available, both at the national and international level, and analyses the spatial distribution of the Northern European retirees living in Spain. The results show the geographical concentration of elderly foreign residents in the Mediterranean coast and the Canary Islands. One of the most relevant consequences of the spatial concentration of retired migrants is the rapid ageing of the demographic structures of those municipalities with the highest number of foreign residents.