The Canary Islands they represent only 1.47 percent of the Spanish territorybut on January 1, 2020 they gather 4.74 percent of their population, which means that the demographic density of the Archipelago is much higher than the country’s average. Actually, at the present time this density is three times higher than said average, which is why the Canary Islands rank third among the autonomous communities, after Madrid and the Basque Country, due to the relative weight of its population, which exceeds 300 inhabitants per km2. This high demographic density in an insular territory with limited resources and far from the rest of the State is the result of an outstanding demographic vitality in the historical past, which has been maintained throughout a good part of the 20th century and even reaches the present. , although driven in recent decades by immigration. But from the beginning of the statistical stage of demography, in 1857, until the beginning of the seventies of the last century, more than 166,000 net emigrants left the Archipelago in search of better living conditions abroad; and throughout such a long period there have also been significant internal migrations, especially directed to the islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria, due to the greater lack of natural resources on the peripheral islands, as well as the consequent limitations of their productive systems to support their own population growth.
Therefore, the historical dynamics of the Canary Islands prior to the seventies of the 20th century, fundamentally based on the exploitation of agricultural and fishing resources and on taking advantage of the advantages of international maritime traffic, propitiated by its situational income and by the creation of the free ports, has favored the economic and population growth of the two central islands of the Archipelago, Tenerife and Gran Canaria, which at the beginning of the seventies of the last century gathered 86.5 percent of the population of the region , due to its greater endowment of resources; and at the same time, it has left significant socioeconomic and demographic burdens on the outlying islands, which recent tourism development has only partially mitigated in Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, and to a limited or no extent in La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro.
But the aforementioned development of the tourism sector, after the sixties, with the full implementation of the construction and services economy, together with the political changes caused by the access of the Islands to self-government, to regional financing, and also , the full integration of the Canary Islands into the European Union in 1992, with the receipt of important structural funds and their inclusion among the outermost regions, have caused unprecedented economic development in the Archipelago, although without ever reaching full employment, as continues to happen at present.
This process has had repercussions on the increase in income, which has approached the State average, although it continues to be below it, and on the improvement of the population’s standard of living; and this ended in the last decades of the 20th century with the migratory flow of the past, and has even given rise to an important migratory current coming from the peninsular, community and foreign environment, to cover part of the labor demands of the new linked economy tourism expansion, construction and services. This current has accounted, between 1970 and 2021, in the table of surpluses built from population censuses and natural movement data, a balance of about 275,000 net immigrants, which tilts the global migratory balance of the Archipelago in the statistical stage on the income side, with a favorable balance of more than 87,000 inhabitants, at least for the time being, since the outflow of qualified people, who cannot find work in our productive system, has intensified throughout the 21st century , according to emigration data provided by the INE in recent years.
In addition, this influx of immigration has contributed significantly to the demographic growth of the Archipelago in recent decades, which between 1970 and 2020 registered cumulative rates of 1.40 percent per year, using census counts, and even 2.08 percent in the first decade of the 21st century. On the other hand, in the most recent period, between 2001 and 2020, and using census counts, growth rates drop to 1.25 percent per year, although these double the national average for the same period (0.87 percent per year), and this despite the secular drop in fertility that the region has experienced, whose rate stands at 0.86 children per woman in 2020, even below the Spanish average of 1.19 children in the region. same date (INE), as well as the important consequences of the real estate and financial crisis that began in 2007, which has profoundly affected the construction sector, and the subsequent health crisis caused by covid-19, which has affected everyone socioeconomic areas. Both circumstances have raised unemployment in the Archipelago to alarming levels, with rates above 30 percent in the first quarter of 2015 (EPA I), and these continue to be high at present (17.73% according to the EPA of the third quarter of 2022), despite the evident economic recovery of the last year.
However, tourism development has barely affected the western outlying islands, so their economy and population have stagnated in this latter stage; and immigration in recent decades has especially favored the hitherto sparsely populated eastern islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, which have experienced significant socioeconomic and tourist development as a result of the introduction of seawater desalination plants since the end of the 1950s. 1960s and early 1970s, respectively, in order to make up for the water shortages characteristic of its climate. It has also had a positive impact on the growth of Tenerife, which has regained its position as the most populated island in the Archipelago, which it had lost in the 1990s to Gran Canaria, due to its greater population dynamism throughout the modern era of demographics.
This diversity of natural and socioeconomic scenarios has had repercussions on the demographic dynamics of each island, so that, within the context of general convergence of behavior patterns of the population of the Archipelago, propitiated by economic development and the general improvement in the level of of life and communications, it is possible to find differential features, some of which are very worrying, such as the notable aging rate of the western peripheral islands and the growing emigration of part of the most qualified young people in the region, given the chronic lack of employment, especially of skilled jobs. And other more encouraging ones, such as the demographic revitalization of the eastern outlying islands, following the introduction of seawater desalination plants, although this process has moderated since 2008 as a result of the construction crisis in the tourism sector.
In conclusion, the significant population increase in the Canary Archipelago has occurred despite the limited natural resources of the islands and the historical existence of a significant emigration flow, used as a tool to maintain a certain balance between population and resources in the Canary Islands. austere and unequal agrarian society of the past. In the recent stage, the development of transport that has increased accessibility abroad and between the islands; the progressive importation of food, the substitution of the traditional agrarian economy for tourism, services and commerce, the change in the political status of the Archipelago in the Spanish and European context, have led to significant economic development and a considerable improvement in the level of life of the population, all of which has had significant repercussions on its dynamics and spatial distribution, giving rise to the creation of two units that promote change linked to the two central islands, Tenerife and Gran Canaria.
