This data can give us some idea of how many Romanians are currently living and working outside their country at the moment. We should also remember, of course, that not all the Romanians who have out-migrated since the end of the 1990s have gone to Spain (there are for example a significant number in Italy), although I dare say a fair proportion of them have. The important thing is that we simply don't know. What we do know - and we know it since the Romanians in Spain (whether they are working legally or not) have an interest (like access to the health system and future amnesties) in registering with the authorities, and indeed the Spanish authorities have (for their own reasons) an interest in maintaining the data in a very up-to-date condition - is that according to the Spanish Padron Municipal electronic-data there were 524,995 Romanaians with active and valid id cards for the Spanish health care system as of 1 Jan 2007. These are not just Romanians who are simply passing through, or just might be around somewhere. The municipal registration which lies behind the data is renewable regularly for those without resident permits, and renewing them is how you get the right to have residence later, so this data is VERY accurate.
Just how accurate can be judged from the sort of detailed data you can get from the Spanish statistics office, like the breakdown of Romanians in Spain by age and sex which I present below. And yes there are people in the 75 to 80 (54) and over 85 groups (41), it's just that they are so few that they don't show.
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