2023-12-24 05:15:00
To find Asturias in the ranking of regions by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita you have to look at the bottom of the table. It is ranked eleventh among the 17 communities and with figures below the national average. However, if you look for the Principality in the ranking of gross disposable income of households per capita, you have to look at the top of the ranking. There Asturias appears in sixth place, with figures above average. The case of Asturians is unique, they are among those who produce the least and at the same time among those who earn the most. Several factors explain this uniqueness, mainly the low activity rate in the region due to aging and the high amount of average pensions.
The National Institute of Statistics (INE) published this week the update of the Regional Accounting of Spain with regard to GDP (2020-2022 series) and the regional income accounts of the household sector (2020-2021 series). The last year, therefore, in which regional income and GDP data can be matched is 2021. The INE makes the comparison between regions and for this it gives a value of 100 to the national average of GDP per capita (the value monetary value of the production of goods and services per inhabitant) and the national average of gross household income per capita (the sum of income from work, plus income from capital, social benefits and transfers, minus direct taxes paid by families and contributions paid to social security).
The production
In this comparative scenario, the GDP per capita of Asturias has a value of 90.6. It is 9.4 points below the national average (100) and very far from the communities that produce the most per inhabitant: Madrid (137.1), the Basque Country (126.9), Navarra (120.3), Catalonia ( 116) and Aragon (111.1). Asturias is ranked eleventh out of 17.
Income
Regarding the gross disposable income of households per capita, the value for Asturias is 104.6. They are 4.6 points above the national average (100) and there the Principality appears in sixth place, only below Madrid (123.5), the Basque Country (126.6), Navarra (113), Catalonia ( 111.5) and Aragón (106.8), the communities that were also at the forefront of production.
The causes of decoupling
Asturias is the only one of the low GDP regions that has high incomes. There are several main factors that explain this uniqueness. First of all, it must be taken into account that Asturias is the community that has the lowest active population rate, which is the ratio between the total number of employed and unemployed people, and the population aged 16 and over. The rate in Asturias is 51.68% according to the latest Active Population Survey. That is, almost half of the population over 16 years of age in Asturias neither works nor seeks employment, an anomaly linked to the strong aging of the population in Asturias that is reflected in the GDP along with other factors such as productivity. Asturias has a large retired population (it represents 46.16% of the total population that receives remuneration, according to the Tax Agency) and it is also the second community with a common regime, after Madrid, with the highest average pensions, of 20,274 euros per year. , due to the weight that high salaries in industry and mining have historically had. These high payments are what keep, for the moment, the income level of Asturian households above the Spanish average.
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