Enrique Guijarro, a teenager at the time, was forced, along with his family, to leave their home in the village of Los Centenares, deep in the Sierra de Segura in Jaén. A total of 4,500 native serranos were also displaced due to the expropriation policies of the Francoist administration, which prioritized the National Hunting Reserve over maintaining these rural areas. The majority of people had to emigrate due to the abandonment of these villages, while Guijarro and his family left due to institutional harassment. The Instituto de Estadística y Cartografía de Andalucía (IECA) recently reported that 1,285,289 Andalusians were living in the rest of Spain in 2023, with a significant portion coming from Jaén, Córdoba, and Granada, the most affected provinces by depopulation in the region.
One in five Andalusian emigrants outside the region, around 250,000 people, come from Jaén, which is experiencing a significant demographic decline. The province has lost more than 47,000 inhabitants in the last decade, with 80 out of 97 municipalities bleeding residents year after year. This situation is a direct result of decades of neglect by the major political parties, according to Juan Afán, a businessman from Jaén who leads the citizen platform Jaén Merece Más. There are bleak forecasts for the future, with the IECA predicting that almost 100,000 residents will leave Jaén before 2050.
Córdoba and Granada have the second-highest number of people living outside the region, with around 217,000 residents each. Four out of ten emigrants from Granada are young people aged 20 to 34. On the other hand, Huelva has the lowest number of residents living outside Andalusia, with only 49,911 people. There is a concern that young people from these regions are forced to migrate to find work in other provinces due to a lack of opportunities and historical underinvestment by the government.
The issue of emigration is not limited to within Spain, as over 300,000 people with Spanish nationality from Andalusia were living abroad at the beginning of 2023. Málaga, Granada, and Almería accounted for the largest percentages of Andalusians living abroad. The statistics from 2021 show a positive migration balance in Andalusia, with more people moving into the region than leaving. The groups in the Spain Vaciada platform are advocating for the declaration of March 31 as the European Day of the Fight against Depopulation, as they continue to raise awareness about the challenges faced by rural areas.
The Spain Vaciada groups highlight the need for increased attention to rural areas in national and regional policies, as well as the disbursement of more European funds to support these regions. The ongoing depopulation crisis is exacerbating territorial imbalances and pushing rural issues to the sidelines. The manifestation of the Revuelta de la España Vaciada in Madrid five years ago has not resulted in significant improvements, prompting the need to continue advocating for neglected areas and striving for socio-economic convergence and territorial balance in line with European criteria.
