Main characteristic features of the Andorran economy and recent economic development

POPULATION

Andorra has a population of 81,222 inhabitants although only 29,535 of these are from the native population. The remaining 51.687 inhabitants are foreigners with most coming from Spain (53%), Portugal (25%) and France (10%). The majority of these foreigners arrived between the start of the 1960s and 1993. Subsequently, there was a period of four years during which immigration all but ceased, although started to increase once again from 1998 onwards, albeit at a more moderate rate than during the previous migratory period, and the estimated average annual growth rate was situated at 1.8% until 2006. At the same time, the growth in native population figures has continued to contribute to the country’s good rhythm of total demographic growth, with an average annual growth rate of 3.8% since 1998.

The birth rate in Andorra is quite similar to the average for Europe although the wedding rate is the lowest in all of Europe. On the other hand, the mortality rate is much lower than the European levels. The return of many immigrants to their countries of origin during the final part of their lives helps to explain this significantly lower death rate, while it also increases life expectancy to over 90 years, which is the highest level on the entire European continent.

The population pyramid shows the predominance of the males in all age groups, with the sole exception of the population above the age of 75. This predominance is especially notable in the 40 to 59 age group, because of the considerable presence of male labourers from abroad. This factor also marks the distribution of the population by age and nationality. Accordingly, more than three quarters of the foreign population is concentrated in the age group between 20 and 64. On the other hand, Andorrans represent the vast majority of inhabitants in the 0 to 9 (81.2%) and the 10 to 19 (65.5%), age groups, while their presence is limited to 22.9% in the case of persons older than 65.

Andorra has a surface area of 468 sq. Km. and a population density of 174 inhabitants per square kilometre, higher than the average for the EU-25 (116 inhab./sq. Km.), but lower that that of other small countries on the continent, such as Luxembourg (181 inhab./sq. Km.), Liechtenstein (218 inhab./sq. Km.) or San Marino (483 inhab./sq. Km.).