Instituto Nacional de Estadística
The 2024 - 2039 Household Projection reflects the result that the continuation of current demographic trends would have on the number of households. Due to its construction method, its results are consistent with those of the Population Projections released today.
According to this projection, the number of households residing in Spain would increase by 3,691,151 (19.1%) between 2024 and 2039, reaching a total of 23,001,927. During the same period, the resident population in Spain would increase by 5,137,447 persons (10.6%).
This would imply a reduction in the number of people living in each household. Thus, the average household size would decrease from the current 2.50 to 2.32 persons in 2039.
Between 2024 and 2039, the smallest households (of one or two persons) would grow, and to a lesser extent, those of three persons, while those of four persons or more would experience a reduction.
Single-person households would show the greatest increase in the next 15 years, in both absolute and relative values. In 2039, the number of single-person households would come to 7.7 million (33.5% of the total), an increase of 41.9% compared to 2024.
The number of people living alone would increase from representing 11.2% of the total population in 2024, to 14.3% in 2039.
Household consisting of two persons would reach 7.2 million in 2039 (31.3% of the total), with an increase of 29.7% since 2024, no longer being the most frequent type, and surpassed by single-person households.
On the other hand, households with three persons would maintain positive growth rates throughout the 2024-2039 period, although with limited growth (1.1%), thereby losing importance compared to other sizes, decreasing from representing 20.0% of households in 2024 to 17.0% of 2039.
Finally, households with four or more members would decrease by 6.2%, from 4.5 million in 2024 to 4.2 million in 2039.
The average number of persons per household has maintained a downward trend since the last censuses. It fell from nearly four persons in 1970 to 2.9 in 2001, and has continued to decline since then, reaching 2.54 in 2021.
This downward trend is expected to continue throughout the projected period, going from an average size of 2.50 persons per household in 2024 to 2.32 in 2039.
The data observed up to 1 January 2024 comes from the Continuous Population Statistics.
The number of households would increase in all autonomous communities throughout the 2024-2039 period.
The largest increases in relative terms would be registered in Región de Murcia (28.8%), Comunitat Valenciana (25.8%) and Cataluña (22.9%).
The average household size would decrease in all communities. The largest decreases would be registered in Extremadura, Galicia and Andalucía. And the most moderate in Illes Balears, Comunidad de Madrid, and Comunitat Valenciana.
With regard to the percentage of single-person households, Castilla y León would be in the lead (with 41.9% of the total in 2039), followed by Principado de Asturias (40.5%) and Extremadura (38.3%). On the other hand, Illes Balears would be the community with the smallest percentage of single-person households (28.9%), followed by Región de Murcia (29.5%) and Comunidad de Madrid (30.4%).
The data published today update the Household Projection 2024-2039, the results of which are no longer representative. All results of this operation are available on INEBase.
The Household Projection provides a statistical simulation of the number of future households in Spain as a whole, in each autonomous community, and in each province, should the currently observed demographic trends continue, as well as household distribution by size. The results are fully consistent with those of the Population Projections.
This operation provides results for the following 15 years, taking as a starting point the number of households on 1 January 2024.
The numbers provided by the Continuous Population Statistics for the years prior to elaboration of the projection are used as a statistical tool, which allows us to obtain the evolution of the proportion of people, according to characteristics of sex, age and province of residence, residing in households with one, two, three, four or five or more members.
There is no international regulatory standard in regard to household projections, so any projections made by other international organizations would respond to their own purposes, methodologies, and assumptions, and their results would not generally coincide with each other or with those of this operation.
For more information, you can access the methodology and the standardised methodological report.
INE statistics are produced in accordance with the Code of Good Practice for European Statistics. More information on Quality at INE and the Code of Best Practices.
Official INE account on
@es_ine