Since the early 1990s, persistently low fertility in Mediterranean countries has attracted the interest of empirical research aimed at identifying factors associated with demographic change in what were traditionally high-fertility contexts. Most of these studies have been carried out at the national scale, while spatial analyses of sub-national patterns remain mostly absent. The present study aims to fill this gap, investigating the spatio-temporal changes in local fertility in Spanish municipalities over a 16-year period that covers consecutive waves of economic expansion (2002–2009) and recession (2010–2017). The analytical framework is grounded on descriptive statistics, spatial statistics (that is, Global Moran’s I and Local Indicators of Spatial Association) and non-parametric inference testing the pair-wise correlations between fertility levels and contextual variables (including population density, topography, accessibility and distance from central locations). Results of this study reveal a fertility decline in most areas of the country—especially in depopulated districts. The highest fertility is observed in Southern Spain, along the Mediterranean coast, and around the main cities. With recession, spatial heterogeneity emerges as the main trend characterizing regional fertility—a finding in line with research from other Mediterranean countries. Local fertility rates were less spatially clustered in the recession than in the expansion period, with a progressive shrinkage of high-fertility districts. A persistent decline in local fertility may be considered an early-warning indicator of depopulation in Spain’s rural districts and can be used to delineate demographically fragile areas.

中文翻译：

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低生育率国家的局部生育率变化：来自西班牙的证据（2002-2017）

自 1990 年代初以来，地中海国家持续的低生育率引起了实证研究的兴趣，这些研究旨在确定与传统高生育率环境中的人口变化相关的因素。大多数这些研究是在国家范围内进行的，而对次国家模式的空间分析却大多缺乏。本研究旨在填补这一空白，调查西班牙城市当地生育率在 16 年期间的时空变化，涵盖连续的经济扩张（2002-2009 年）和衰退（2010-2017 年）浪潮。分析框架基于描述性统计、空间统计（即，Global Moran's I 和空间关联的本地指标）和非参数推理测试生育水平和背景变量（包括人口密度、地形、可达性和距中心位置的距离）之间的成对相关性。这项研究的结果表明，该国大部分地区的生育率都在下降，尤其是在人口稀少的地区。西班牙南部、地中海沿岸和主要城市周围的生育率最高。随着经济衰退，空间异质性成为表征区域生育率的主要趋势——这一发现与其他地中海国家的研究一致。与扩张时期相比，经济衰退时期的地方生育率在空间上的聚集程度较低，高生育率地区逐渐缩小。