A paradise for foreign pensioners?: One in five of the over-65s residing in Malaga was born abroad, but where do they move from?

The province, which includes the Costa del Sol, is second only to Alicante on the Costa Blanca with the highest proportion of foreign residents among those of retirement age in Spain

Cristina Vallejo

Malaga

Thursday, 15 August 2024, 13:09 | Updated 17:29h.

Malaga province is certainly a popular holiday destination, but it is also a place where many people from other parts of the world come to spend their retirement because of its climate, its cuisine, its culture and, in general, the quality of life that is attributed to the Mediterranean coast, especially the Costa del Sol. This is evident to anyone who travels around the area, be they at the seaside or inland, as they will come across a scattering of communities of Germans, Brits and people from the Nordic countries of all ages, but above all those who have earned the freedom to settle wherever they please after ending their working lives. This phenomenon is backed up by the data that shows that one in five people aged 65 and over living in Malaga province was born abroad. To be precise, on 1 July this year there were 333,803 people aged 65-plus living in the province and 71,253 were of foreign origin (21.43%), according to the most recent population survey by Spain's national institute of statistics (INE).

More than twice as many as in rest of Spain

The figures for Malaga are in contrast to those for Spain as a whole. Of the slightly more than ten million inhabitants over the age of 65, just over 805,000 were born outside the country, so the foreign population represents 8% of this age group, which also includes the over-90s. From what everyone has been gleaning and from these initial figures, it is clear that the province has a very high proportion of its elderly population having been born outside the country. Malaga comes second, only behind Alicante province. For Alicante the number of people who have passed retirement age amounts to 419,570, of which 103,506 were born outside Spain, (or practically 25% one out of every four).

But the Costa del Sol's power of attraction for retirees from other parts of the world is, apart from Alicante, unbeatable. In Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the nearly 38,000 foreigners over 65 years of age do not even represent 18.5% of the total number of their peers living on the island. Meanwhile, in the Balearic Islands, they account for 16.6% of the total, a percentage similar to that of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Along with these provinces, there is another that also stands out, although always behind Malaga: Almeria, where the elderly of foreign origin account for 15.4% of the total. So, apart from these cases, only in one other province, Girona (12.5%), do foreigners over 65 years of age exceed the 10% barrier. In other Mediterranean destinations they do not reach this level, for instance, Murcia (9.6%), Castellón (8.75%), Barcelona (8.07%) or Valencia (7.35%).

Other Andalusian provinces with a coastline seem to be less attractive: in Granada, the pensionable foreigners account for 5.9% of the total, while in Cadiz they barely account for 4.3%.

The importance of Malaga's foreign population can be seen in other metrics: the 71,353 foreign inhabitants over the age of 65 in the province are almost 9% of those in the whole country (805,319). Almost one in ten foreign-born over-65s who have chosen Spain to spend their retirement have chosen Malaga. Still, there may also be other circumstances behind this phenomenon: many of these people may have emigrated to Spain years ago, then they reached retirement age and just decided to continue living here. This may be the case in Almería and also in Guadalajara. In fact, Guadalajara is one of the small inland provinces with the highest proportion of elderly people of foreign origin, at around 8%. In contrast Ciudad Real, for example, is barely at 2.5%, and in Burgos, almost 3%.

So Malaga is the fourth largest province in Spain in terms of the number of elderly residents of foreign origin in absolute figures, but in percentage terms it is second only to Alicante. Malaga is behind Madrid, where there are more than 126,800, although they do not even represent 10% of the 1.3 million elderly there in total. Next is Alicante again, where there are more than 103,000, and finally Barcelona, where there are more than 93,600.

Where do they come from?

From where are these foreigners coming who have passed retirement age and live in Malaga province? The most recent data provided by the INE with a breakdown of the geographical origin of these people corresponds to January 2023. On that date, the majority (36.50%) were from European countries from outside the EU, followed by citizens of EU countries at 30.65%. Almost 14% were born in Africa and almost 13% in South America. Adding to the latter, those from Central America, the Caribbean and North America make a total of 15.5% who come from the American continent. Citizens from Asia and Oceania account for the remaining 3.5%.

The total number of foreigners resident in Malaga reached 330,180 on 1 July 2024. This figure shows, firstly, that those over 65 years of age - over 71,000 - account for 21.6% of the total number of people of foreign origin in the province. Secondly, the foreign population as a whole represents 18.5% of the nearly 1.78 million inhabitants of the province. Another curiosity also emerges from these figures, which is that the proportion of citizens of foreign origin is higher among those over 65 years of age (21.43%) than among the total population (18.5%). In Spain as a whole, the opposite is true: foreigners account for 13.6% of the total population, compared with 8% among the elderly, which suggests that Malaga is a place of residence for foreign retirees.

In absolute terms (number of inhabitants), Malaga is the province with the fifth highest number of foreign residents of all ages after Madrid, Barcelona, Alicante and Valencia. In relative terms (by percentage), it is seventh, with Alicante, Almeria, Girona, the Balearic Islands and Lleida ahead and above 20%.

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