Migration and registration of european retired in Spain

Vicente Rodriguez, Instituto de Economía y Geografía, Spain
Raúl Lardiés, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)

Retired population in Europe is showing a mobile, flexible, temporary behaviour, marked by some individual and family constraints, benefiting from the low cost carriers (frequency, cheap fares, close airports, ..). An increase of the figures and, to some extent, of the temporary residence are visible consequences, so, many European retired tend not to register with the Inhabitants' Register (Padrón), being under-registered, as, In Spain, spectators about the retired foreigners’ situation, such as local officers, municipal authorities, newspapers, associations,… agree. Sometimes, unofficial estimates counterbalance the official figures, while researchers are forced to make theoretical and methodological adjustments to catch all aspects of retired migrants, by using some proxy indicators or personal interviews or questionnaires to obtain primary specific information about foreigners. Local institutions, obliged to raise a challenge to improve their impacts’ assessment and to design socially-oriented policies, benefit from it. Using qualitative questionnaires and interviews, carried out in the most outstanding Andalusian municipalities, this paper tries to pay attention the existing relations among under-registration, both the length of stay in Spain since they came to spend more than three months a year in Spain and their permanent or temporary residence yearly, and some significant variables of those involved, such as age, gender, nationality, household composition or geographical location. A detailed study of the complexity of reasons argued has also been carried out, stressing arguments, the ones to register their residence with the Town Hall, the other not to make it, all tied to their lifestyle as people living in a country other than yours when they are growing older. Channels to know about the municipal registration are also evaluated. Finally, a set of conclusions and proposals to improve the registration process as the instrument to more accurately measure the retired foreign residents are shown.