Linked population to the territory and space of life in Spain. An approximation from the 2001 census

Marc Ajenjo, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Joan Alberich, Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Today's society is characterized by a growing mobility: to carry out their daily activities, people perform increasingly more displacements and to a greater distance. This implies that the attachment to the place of residence loses explanatory value of the residential behavior, and that through mobility, people use broader spaces, making up the so-called "space of life". The aim of this communication, summary of a broader work done at the Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics, is to determine the "space of life" of the Spanish population according to the Population and Housing Census 2001. This source provides information about four different spaces: place of residence, place of work, place of study and the second residence. Specifically, the analysis is developed from the two points of view from which it is possible to study the relationship between people and their territory: from the viewpoint of the territory, based on the concept of "linked population"; and from the viewpoint of the population, based on the concept of "space of life". The results show that 32.5% of the population over 15 years of age use more than one municipality for their daily activities, but the main feature is its proximity component, so that the vast majority of individuals who move to another township do so in one of the same province. However, the municipal detail shows big differences depending on the situation of the municipality in the relationship coastland-inland.