On 1 January 2020, the population of the Basque Country stood at 2,199,711 people, of whom 303,209 were 15 to 29 years of age: 51.2% men (155,214) and 48.8% women (147,995).
The total population of the Basque Country has displayed extremely moderate levels of growth since it surpassed 2,000,000 inhabitants for the first time in 1975. The youth population, on the other hand, experienced a continuous and sharp decline until 2015, when the number of young people reached 286,378 and, since then, it seems to be increasing, albeit at a very slow pace.
Evolution of the Youth Population Aged 15 to 29 and the Total Population of the Basque Country (Absolute Figures)
Source: EUSTAT (Municipal Population Statistics)
Despite this slight upturn between 2016 and 2019, if we focus on the evolution of the population aged 15-29 in the Basque Country between 2005 (396,135 people) and 2020 (303,209), we can conclude that there has been a clear downward trend over the last 15 years.
Evolution of the Youth Population aged 15 to 29 (Absolute Figures)
Source: EUSTAT (Municipal Population Statistics)
The internal populational structure of the group of people aged 15 to 29, subdivided into five-year age groups, shows that the distribution is quite uniform, since people aged 15 to 19 account for 34.1% of the group (103,343 people), those aged 20 to 24 account for 32.5% (98,502) and those aged 25 to 29 for 33.4% (101,364 people).
Youth Population Aged 15 to 29 by Five-Year Age Groups and Sex in 2020 (Absolute Figures)
Source: EUSTAT (Municipal Population Statistics)
In terms of provinces, 51.1% of the population aged 15 to 29 in the Basque Country lives in Bizkaia (154,927 people), 34.1% in Gipuzkoa (103,535 people) and the remaining 14.8% in Alava (44,747 people).
As a result of these demographic trends, the youth index, or the proportion of young people within the population as a whole, has continued to fall over the last few years in the Basque Country, and in 2020 it stood at 13.8%. This figure places the Basque Country as one of the European regions with the lowest youth index in an already aged continent, bearing in mind that the EU28 average in 2019 was 16.9%.
Evolution of the Basque Country Youth Index (%)
Source: Basque Youth Observatory based on data from EUSTAT (Municipal Population Statistics)
On the other hand, if we compare people aged 15 to 29 to those over 64 years of age, we again find data that show the specific fall in the percentage of young people within the population as a whole. In 2010, there were 79.2 young people for every 100 people over 64 years of age; by 2020, that ratio had fallen to 61.3.
