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Spain is a constitutional monarchy, its formal title, the Kingdom of Spain. Its king is Juan Carlos, 66 years old in 2004, the grandson of Alfonso XIII, who was deposed by Spain's Second Republic, the republic that was ended by civil war and Francisco Franco. Franco nurtured Juan Carlos as his replacement, and on November 22, 1975, two days after Franco's death, Juan Carlos became king. Some on the left associated Carlos with fascism and thought he would not last long. Carlos instituted democratic reforms, became highly respected and a stabilizing influence on Spain. The Spanish monarchy became not unlike the monarchies of the Britain, Norway, Sweden, Belgium and Denmark.
Figures unless otherwise stated are from the CIA Factbook.
Estimated per capita GDP:
2008 $34,600
2007 $34,300
2006 $33,100
GDP annual growth rate:
2008: 1.1%
2007: 3.7%
2006: 3.9%
Unemployment rate for 2008: 13.9%.
The president since March 2004, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, a socialist, announced his intension to reduce government intervention in business, to combat tax fraud, support innovation, research and development and also to reintroduce labor market regulations that had been eliminated. According to the CIA Factbook, Zapatero "has initiated economic and social reforms that are generally popular among the masses of people but that are anathema to religious and other conservative elements."
Compared to the wealthier countries farther north, Spain is more agricultural, 7 percent of its labor force was in agriculture in 2001. For 2004 this figure has dropped to 5.3 percent.
Spain has been a tourist destination second in popularity only to France. People from farther north enjoy is sun and beaches.
Import-export figures for 2004 are a slight loss for Spain - $222 billion in imports, $172.5 billion in exports.
Military expenditures as a percentage of GDP: 1.2 (2005).
Taxes are listed by Nationmaster.com as averaging $2,610.8 per person, compared to $9,401 for the UK and $6,702 for the United States. As a percentage of GDP, Spain's federal tax burden is 34 percent, compared to Sweden's 52 percent for the United States.
Deaths 9.9, Births 9.87, down from 10.1 in 2005.
Estimated in July 2008: 40.49 million, up from 40.3 million in 2005. Density for 2005: 80.7 persons per square kilometer (does not include lakes). Growth rate for 2008: 0.096 percent.
More arriving than leaving. A net gain of 0.99 persons per 1,000 population, same as 2007.
Infant mortality estimated for 2008: 4.26, down from 4.42 for 2005 (deaths before the age of one year, per 1,000 live births), compared to 5.01 for Britain and 6.37 for the U.S.
Average life expectancy at birth estimated for 2007: 79.92 years - slightly higher than the United States.
Living with HIV/AIDS, ages 15 to 49: 0.7 percent. (2003)
In Spain, $1,043 is spent on health care for each person per year, compared to $3,857 for Switzerland, $2,288 for France in 1999 and $1675 for the UK that year.
Health care in Spain has been described as diverse - in places as good as anywhere in Europe, and in places poor. Spain provides free or low cost health care for those paying into the system.
Nationmaster.com gives the Spanish a net happiness rating of only 68 percent, compared to 84 percent for people in the U.S. and France and 91 percent for the Swedes and Dutch. The Russians, who are struggling more than people in Spain, have only a 2 percent rating. High unemployment would contribute to the lower happiness ranking. So too would the rise in cost of living and a lot of Spanish families struggling to meet that cost.
When I was in Spain in 1960 I could see Spaniards, including women, confident about their personal security. Petty criminals, I was told, received tough treatment from the Franco regime. Statistics today rank Spain low on crime. Nationmaster.com lists Spain as having 2.24 assaults for every 1,000 in population "covering the years 1998 to 2000." Nationmaster does not say whether this is an annual rate, but comparing it to other countries on the same chart, the U.S. has 7.7 assaults per 1,000, Britain 7.5, Italy 0.5 and Saudi Arabia 0.2.
For murders during this same 1998-2000 period Spain is listed as having 1 murder for every 10,000 persons, the U.S. 4 murders. Britain also has 1 for every 10,000.
17 percent Catalan, 7 percent Galician, and 2 percent Basque.
Spain has fewer McDonald's restaurants per capita than a lot of nations - 6.8 McDonald's for every million people compared to 44 per million in the U.S., 35.5 per million in Australia, 28.3 per million in Japan and 18.5 per million in the UK.
Spain is second only to Denmark in pork consumption.
Catholics, 81 percent. Two-thirds responding to a 2002 survey said they rarely or never attend services. The New York Times reports, on April 19 2005, that 18 percent of Catholics attend mass weekly.
About 18 percent of the Spanish were using the internet in 2001, compared to 40 percent of the population in Britain in 2002
Summer, 2004. For the second summer season, tourism is down, this year hotels along Spain's beaches having 40 percent vacancies. One possible reason, people are doing it where it is cheaper - in Croatia along the coast of the Adriatic Sea, Tunisia or Turkey.
According to an article in Britain's Guardian on September 2, 2004, Spain's women are the longest living people in Europe, living on average to an age of 83.7 years. (2005) Spain's men are described as second to men in Sweden. Credit for the good health of the Spanish is given to Spain's "excellent health care system" to olive oil and red wine."
Ranks 10th in the Economist Magazine's 2005 Quality-of-Life index, ahead of the United States, which ranks 13th, and Britain, which ranks 29th.
SOURCES:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php
Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation
Copyright © 2008 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.