The socio-economic mobility of immigrants in Spain, 1991-2001: progress or stagnation?

Marta Roig, United Nations

The purpose of this paper is to describe the socioeconomic mobility of immigrants in a new country of immigration, Spain, between 1991 and 2001 and to examine the influence of a number of factors, including length of residence, national origin and place of residence, on their occupational paths. Using microdata from the 1991 census and from the recently released 2001 census, we compare the socioeconomic characteristics of immigrants by period of arrival and origin in 1991 and 2001. We then conduct logistic regression analyses to verify whether belonging to certain groups has a negative impact on the labour market situation and whether such impact is constant across arrival cohorts and destination regions. Our findings suggest that occupational mobility depends strongly on national origin and destination even when other socio-demographic characteristics are accounted for; length of residence is not systematically a condition for improvement of the labour market situation of immigrants.