Contextual determinants of internal migration of Latin Americans in Spain (1998-2010)

Doris Cristina Quintero Lesmes, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Joaquin Recaño Valverde, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

In this paper we explore the contextual factors, at a provincial level, that determine the internal migration of Latin-Americans in Spain during the period 1998-2010. This group, divided according to major nationalities, is systematically compared with the behavior among the Spaniards and other nationality groupings (countries from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia). The population data used in this study comes from the Municipal Register (Padrón Continuo) which provides the denominators for rate calculations and the Statistics of Residential Variations. The latter allows us to know the places of residence of the individuals in the period of study; while other sources, like the Labour Force Survey (EPA) provides information on socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of the provinces (contextual factors). The methodology that has been applied is a panel regression analysis which permits to jointly examine both temporal and contextual effects that may influence internal migration differences between the various nationalities of Latin-Americans in relation to the Spanish and other groups of population.