Immigrant integration in Spain: different patterns in distinct stages of the crisis?

Abstract

This paper examines Spain’s immigrant population integration processes from 2007 to 2014. It takes as its starting point a previous study (Godenau et al., 2014; Rinken et al., 2016) that revealed different patterns in distinct fields in the first period of the crisis that began in 2008 (until 2011), to check whether these tendencies have persisted. The extent to which the evolution of the disparities between natives and immigrants depended on their respective paths is also analysed. In the fields of social relations and citizenship favourable integration paths were maintained, while the foreign population remained at a significant disadvantage on economic and labour issues. However, that disadvantage decreased in the second part of the crisis due to the native population’s relatively less favourable evolution.

Keywords

• Spain
• immigration
• integration
• indicators
• economic crisis