A spatial analysis of recent fertility patterns in Spain

Alessandra Carioli, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) and University of Groningen
Daniel Devolder, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Joaquin Recaño Valverde, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Spatial demography embodies and important role in detecting fertility behavior paths. Indeed, national trends are often misleading as they might misrepresent substantial regional deviations from the main national level. Even though we can fairly assert that Spanish fertility is among the lowest in the world, important geographical heterogeneity characterizes Spanish fertility patterns of tempo and quantum. Moreover, recent trends in migration and the migrants selection for settlements, add up to the spatial heterogeneity in fertility trends and substantially contribute in shaping Spanish and provincial fertility. The objective of this paper is to investigate the variability present in fertility across different geographic areas in Spain since the onset of the Second Demographic Transition and shed new light on tempo and quantum effects differences across Spain. Using unique data from Spanish municipios (LAU2), we define approximately 600 territorial units, comarcas, in mainland Spain, thus excluding islands and extraterritorial possessions ensuring spatial contiguity. The fertility indicators used in the analysis are grouped by 5 years of age and are classified by birth order and by mother and father’s country of birth for the calendar years 1986-2011. The first part of the analysis addresses issues of global and local spatial autocorrelation of the above mentioned indicators through means of descriptive spatial analysis at provincial level (NUTS3). In a second phase, we introduce the new grouping of municipalities, the comarcas, and further investigate patters of geographical dependency. We then apply a cluster analysis to identify which dimensions of fertility can explain the geographical variance in the TFR.