Economic and Social Changes Since the Restoration of Democracy

Abstract

This chapter analyses several interrelated processes of economic development, social modernization, and demographic change in Spanish society from 1978 to the present. In this period, the country adopted several of the basic demographic patterns characteristic of post-transitional societies, including increased control over mortality and fertility, a large inflow of migrants, slow or even negative rates of natural growth, and a rapidly ageing population. At the same time, and fuelled in part by the dividends of this demographic transformation, a process of general convergence with other developed economies has taken place: sectoral change and occupational change transformed the distribution of the labour force and consolidated a service economy in which the new middle classes of highly educated professionals and technicians have thrived. Despite the ups and downs of the business cycle, these processes of societal change have improved the overall living standard of Spanish society.