Immigration and Population Policy in the work of Josep Antoni Vandellós

Abstract

Josep Antoni Vandellós i Solà (1899-1950), economist and statistician, devoted a fundamental part of his work to do the first demographic studies of Catalonia, specifically from two key works, both published in 1935: Catalunya, poble decadent and La immigració a Catalunya. In his attempt to outline a comprehensive policy on population that could account for the challenges he faced Catalonia with respect to mass immigration in the early thirties from the rest of Spain, in the beginning of the recession that followed the 29 economic crisis, raises questions of great relevance, based on the selection and control of flows, but also in the settlement and integration of the immigrant population. This article provides an analysis of the genealogy of Vandellós discourse, which helps us to understand the time that was stated, but also an increasingly common discourse in Europe nowadays.

Keywords: Demography, Population policies, Migration, Catalonia, Eugenics.