ABSTRACT
Probably the most serious social problems affecting Spanish rural areas today are probably those related to their demographics – that is, they experience both extremely high levels of an aging population and the depopulation of the medium and small-sized rural centres. This phenomenon is what some authors have classified as an extreme demographic landscape (Camarero Rioja, 2002: 63) because, while the rest of the Spanish population gradually ages, the degree of aging in rural areas is quite pronounced. Demographically, the clearly regressive population is characterized by the depopulation of towns due to out-migrations – whose numbers had been maintained up until the 1990s – and by the high rate of mortality due to the aging of the population and the very low birth rate. As such, Spanish rural areas have all of the factors that characterize a sustained demographic recession.
