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Pedestrians on Maisonnave Avenue in Alicante. Shootori
Alicante ranks second in poverty due to its "excessive dependence on tourism"

Alicante ranks second in poverty due to its "excessive dependence on tourism"

Nearly 14% of Alicante residents are at risk of social exclusion, according to an Ivie study

Pau Sellés / EP

Alicante

Jueves, 2 de enero 2025, 07:25

The province of Alicante is the second in all of Spain with the highest relative poverty (28.5%), only behind Almería, and is also among the four provinces with the highest risk of social exclusion (13.9%).

These are some of the conclusions of the study 'Geographical Distribution of Household Income in Spain', conducted by the Ramón Areces Foundation and the Valencian Institute of Economic Research (Ivie). "Alicante is in a very poor state in terms of poverty, with truly concerning data," lamented Carmen Herrero, one of the study's authors.

The study analyses the prosperity, inequality, and poverty of Spanish households based on data from the INE's Income Distribution Atlas, with the latest data corresponding to 2021, and considers aspects such as prosperity, inequality, and the incidence of poverty based on various indicators.

Among the most populated cities in the Comunitat, the most unequal are Torrevieja and Alicante, while one of the most egalitarian is San Vicente del Raspeig.

At the municipal level, in the synthetic indicator of well-being, Alicante ranks last among the group of Spanish capitals with between 300,000 and 500,000 inhabitants. Among the most populated cities in the Comunitat, the most unequal are Torrevieja and Alicante, while one of the most egalitarian is San Vicente del Raspeig.

Additionally, the extreme poverty index in Torrevieja is striking: nearly 24% of its population was at risk of exclusion in 2021. This percentage increases among the youth: 33.7% of young people in Torrevieja are in extreme poverty.

Effects of tourism

According to the report's authors, the reason behind Alicante's poor figures lies in its productive model. "Regions, provinces, and municipalities with excessive dependence on tourism exhibit low levels of well-being," explained Herrero.

According to the economics professor, "those living in Benidorm or Torrevieja are the people serving the tourists, the waiters and the 'kellys', not the entrepreneurs. The inhabitants of these regions have low wages, high inequality rates, and there is a lot of poverty," she denounced.

According to the Ivie report, regions with excessive dependence on tourism exhibit low levels of well-being.

Carlos Albert added that in the province of Alicante, "productive activities are less transferred to the territory than other less service-oriented and more industrial activities," where there are better income distribution and inequality data.

The report's authors emphasize that having educational and innovation structures such as universities, technology centres, and hubs improves the income levels of cities.

Young people, the most affected

By age, in all autonomous communities, the population with the least income opportunities are the young, while those over 65 have the most income opportunities, the report's authors explained.

In the Comunitat, the income opportunity indicator rises to 67.3 points for those over 65, 48.9 points for those under 18, and 55.8 points for working-age individuals (18-64 years). It shows slightly lower differences than the average, with an 18.4-point gap between the income opportunities of the elderly and the young.

The report's authors have pointed out that "pensions in this country are very generous" compared to salaries, because "they correspond to people who contributed with more stable jobs than those available today." As the years progress, this gap will narrow but downwards, due to the poorer pensions current workers will receive.

Likewise, income opportunities are greater for men than for women in all autonomous communities. In the Valencian community, "this difference is one of the smallest but persists": 60.9 points for men and 58.5 for women. It thus ranks among the autonomous communities with the smallest gender gap, at 2.5 points.

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todoalicante Alicante ranks second in poverty due to its "excessive dependence on tourism"