Asturias is the Spanish autonomous community where the economic relevance of pensions is greatest. The transfers that the region receives in this way are equivalent to 20% of the gross domestic product (GDP), a proportion that is not reached in any other. The income of the retirees acted during decades as a financial cushion against the cutbacks of the old basic industries, and they have done it again in the last crisis, keeping the homes afloat against the collapse of the wages due to the dismissals and the adjustments of the Great Recession (2008-2013).
These numbers from the Social Security and the Spanish Institute of Statistics give us some clues: contributory pensions injected in Asturias 4,544 million euros last year, 1,021 million more than in 2008, while the aggregate compensation of employees (10,620 million in 2016) is still far from recovering the levels of those times (12,060 million in 2008).
The unique importance of pensions in Asturias has demographic and economic explanations connected to each other. The Principality is one of the most aged territories in Spain, a feature it shares with other communities in the Northwest, and that position is related to the future of the economy of Asturias: the industrial decline that, especially after the eighties of the last century, decreased the birthrate (it was 16 births per thousand inhabitants in 1975 and fell to less than 6 in 1998), or the deficit of dynamism compared to others territories during the growing phases of the Spanish economy, a circumstance that limited the attractiveness of Asturias as a recipient of immigrants.
A region that often represents 2% of other issues in Spain (population, GDP, employment...) has just over 3% of pensioners. They are 271,500 (same amount as all inhabitants in Gijón) and they receive almost 301,000 pensions (some of them are entitled to receive two compensations, usually widows who combine the retirement or disability pension with the widowhood pension). The number of pensioners has grown moderately in Asturias in the last decade (accumulated 3% since 2008), while it was 13% in the whole of Spain. The divergence has to do with the premature aging of the population of Asturias, which had raised more intensely the number of retirees in previous decades.
Another feature of the pensions in Asturias is the high amount of the average compensation: 1,085 euros per month, 18% higher than the national average. It's a statistical average, not what a majority of pensioners charge. Four out of ten payrolls are lower than the minimum inter-professional salary (707 euros). The high amount of the average pension, the third largest in the country, is linked to the productive profile of the region and to the unique importance of the industrial activities where contributions during working life (as well as wages) are usually high. The average pension grew by 25% in nominal terms (without discounting inflation) from 2008. This was influenced by the retirement of generations who had better access to training than the previous ones and who therefore often had better paid jobs.
This advance in the average pension, however, came to a halt especially from 2014 on, for reasons derived from the crisis (the forced early retirement of workers who lost their jobs and suffered a penalty in the amount of their pensions) and, presumably, also for the first impacts of the reforms that, cut back on the generosity of the system from 2013. Asturias, the region where pensions have the most economic importance, is therefore also the most exposed one to the consequences of such adjustments.
