Spain: Economic System - World Health Systems Facts

Population, 2021: 47,420,000
Gross National Income, Atlas method (Current USD) (Billions), 2021: $1,426.62
GNI per capita, Atlas method (Current USD), 2021: $30,090
Income Share Held by Lowest 20%, 2021: 6.0%
Gross Domestic Product (Current USD) (Billions), 2021: $1,445.65

Source: World Bank. Country Profile: Spain. World Development Indicators. Last accessed February 28, 2024.

Population, 2021: 47,487,000
Gross Domestic Product Per Capita (Current USD) (2010-2019): $29,565
Share of Household Income (2010-2019):
Bottom 40%: 18%; Top 20%: 41%; Bottom 20%: 6%
Gini Coefficient (2010-2019): 33
Palma Index of Income Inequality (2010-2019): 1.3

Note: Gini coefficient – Gini index measures the extent to which the distribution of income (or, in some cases, consumption expenditure) among individuals or households within an economy deviates from a perfectly equal distribution. A Gini index of 0 represents perfect equality, while an index of 100 implies perfect inequality.
Palma index of income inequality – Palma index is defined as the ratio of the richest 10% of the population’s share of gross national income divided by the poorest 40%’s share.

Source: United Nations Children’s Fund, The State of the World’s Children 2023: For every child, vaccination, UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight, Florence, April 2023.

“The economic crisis prevails as the most notable feature in the description of the current Spanish economic context. Spain has endured a sustained impact of the recession, with an unprecedented upturn of the public debt and continuous budgetary deficit, high unemployment rates and a sharp reduction in household incomes.

“In macroeconomic terms, the last 20 years exhibit a clear contrast between an expansionary cycle until 2007 and a deep downturn in 2009, which has recovered since 2014. In 2009, gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate fell dramatically to –3.5%, with negative figures until 2014 (Table 1.2).

“Notably, government revenues plummeted between 2007 and 2009 (up to 6 points of the GDP) while public spending still increased from 38.9% of GDP in 2007 to 45.8% in 2009, to cope with unemployment subsidies and other social expenditures. As a consequence of this dynamic, the deficit in 2009 reached 11% of GDP. Since 2011, the public deficit has reduced as a consequence of public expenditure constraints and, to a lesser extent, to the increasing government revenues (Ministry of Finance, 2014). However, this new dynamic is unable to cope with the cumulative public debt, which in 2016 was almost equivalent to the Spanish GDP (Eurostat, 2017a).”

Source: Bernal-Delgado E, García-Armesto S, Oliva J, Sánchez Martínez FI, Repullo JR, PeñaLongobardo LM, Ridao-López M, Hernández-Quevedo C. Spain: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2018;20(2):1–179.

“Unemployment has become a major economic and social problem since the inception of the crisis. The Labour Force Survey (Encuesta de Población Activa) showed a dramatic increase of unemployment, from 1.8 million unemployed workers in 2007 (about 8% of active population) to more than 6 million jobless people (26.09% unemployment overall rate) in 2013. Since then, figures have been slowly reducing with an unemployment rate of 18.9% (4.32 million people) in the third quarter of 2016 (INE, 2017c). Although unemployment has affected all labour groups, young people showed the worst figures; so, since 2007 their unemployment rate has been growing until 2015, from 21.7% to 48.0%. Latest 2016 figures show a slight decrease with 44.9% unemployment rate. When it comes to gender, unemployment is slightly higher for women and the difference has widened slightly over the years – that is, in 2009 the difference was 17.9% for men versus 18.1% for women and in 2016 the difference was 19.6% versus 21.4%, respectively (Eurostat, 2017b).”

Spain: Economic System - Healthcare - National Policies - World Health Systems Facts

World Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems and policies in the US and sixteen other nations.

Page last updated March 6, 2025 by Doug McVay, Editor.