People over 65 years of age in Spain: a regional exploratory approach

Abstract

Rapid population ageing is transforming societies and bringing into question existing approaches to economic development and sustainable growth. In 2014, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Global Coalition on Aging (GCOA) defined a new concept, the Silver Economy (OECD, 2014), which highlights the challenges and opportunities of societies in the XXI century, in which the population aged 65 and over account for more than 50% of consumption. Healthy and active ageing can drive long-term productivity and age-friendly environments enable older people to age safely in a place that is right for them (WHO, 2021). Therefore, 2021-2030 has been declared the Decade of healthy ageing, research into healthy ageing being a key point in identifying the current needs of the elderly and linking their economic conditions and social factors to assess actions that will improve the road towards healthy ageing (WHO, 2020). In the case of Spain, the division of the territory into autonomous communities determines the characteristics of this population group (MAPFRE, 2021). In this context, the purpose of the present paper is established: an analysis of the characteristics of people over 65 years of age in Spain, based on a regional approach. Considering the data available for the Spanish autonomous communities, provided by the National Statistics Institute (INE) and Institute for Older Persons and Social Services (IMSERSO), the analysis focuses on the study of the characteristics of elderly people in order to describe and classify the 17 Spanish autonomous communities. For this purpose, Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA) and Cluster Analysis (Ward’s hierarchical method) were conducted. The study concludes that the autonomous communities can be classified into six different groups: demographical differences are important, but so are some aspects concerning longevity and assistance.