Spain's population? Go figure

Poor record-keeping and a desire by Spain's town halls to hold on to their central-government funding has led to the country's population being overestimated by more than one million people, the National Statistics Institute (INE) has admitted.

"There are 46 million of us in Spain," says Antonio Argüeso, the INE's Deputy Director General of Socio-demographic Statistics. "But the official figure for the moment is 47 million."

Argüeso says that the over-calculation will be rectified in the INE's next census, which will be based on annual surveys of households to provide a more accurate picture of its population. The INE says that in the medium term it intends to move away from reliance on electoral rolls. Up until now, it has surveyed people directly in their households each decade. This year it will carry out a survey of just 10 percent of the population. However, from now on, this will be done every year, albeit on just one percent of the population.

The INE says that town hall figures can vary by as much as four percent. He says that the main reason for the discrepancy is that many immigrants have left Spain over the last two to three years without informing their town hall, thus remaining on the electoral roll.

Government funding

But Argüeso also says that town halls are slow to register deaths. Since 1996, the country has had a system of registering changes to the electoral roll, but that town halls have not been updating them. The explanation for this slowness might lie with the fact that local authorities receive funding from the central government based on the size of their populations.

Spain carries out a population census every 10 years, which generally produces a lower figure than that achieved simply by adding up electoral rolls. "In the 2001 census, the population fell by 800,000," says Argüeso. Nevertheless, he says, the official figure remains that based on the electoral roll. But the figure used for international statistics, particularly the EU's Eurostat, is based on the INE's calculation.

The INE says that its plans to carry out an annual survey are aimed at bringing town halls' electoral rolls into line with its own figures. Argüeso says that this will not only facilitate greater accuracy in calculating fluctuations in the population, but also provide a more detailed picture of changing social trends, such as family structures and breadwinners.