El valor de los servicios educativos y sanitarios en los procesos de atracción y mantenimiento de población en medio rural

This article stresses the value of basic education and health-care services in the population's residential decisions of choosing a particular interior municipality of the Valencian Province, settling there, or moving from one nucleus to the other. This is, firstly, done from a spatial point of view, since the importance of both basic services is not identical among the rural municipalities; and secondly, according to the main population groups that are temporarily (immigrants, foreign tourists, etc.) or permanently (local population, the retired who have returned, etc.) linked to these areas. Therefore, both cases have shown that a school and/or a medical centre may play a crucial role in the local demographic evolution but may also depend on other types of more important territorial variables such as mobility (particularly individual transport), (qualified) employment, residence and support by family and/or friends. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]