Migration responses to the Spanish economic crisis among Latin - PDF document

Migration responses to the Spanish economic crisis among Latin American immigrants * Victoria Prieto-Rosas † Joaquín Recaño-Valverde ‡ Abstract This paper assesses the changes in migration for internal and international outmigration of foreign immigrants in Spain, paying special attention to the Latin American origins. First, based on register data from Residential Variation Statistics published by the Spanish National Statistics Office, we describe the magnitude and intensity of inter-regional migration, return, and outmigration to a third country for the period 2006-2013. Second, we analyze the demographic characteristics of migrants and the incidence of time and context of origin on the probability of moving abroad with respect to migrating internally. Results discuss which individual and territorial characteristics orient migrants in preferring different forms of out-migration in reference to internal migration and contribute to understanding which of these strategies was dominant at the various stages of the recent economic recession. KEYWORDS: return, internal migration, remigration, European Union, Spain, Latin America * This paper has been carried out in the framework of the research project: Movilidad geográfica y acceso a la vivienda: España en perspectiva internacional (Ref. CSO2013-45358-R) funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitivity, National R+D+I. † Population Program, School of Social Sciences, University of the Republic (Uruguay). E- MailVictoria.prieto@cienciassociales.edu.uy. ‡ Department of Geography and Centre of Demographic Studies, Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain). E-Mail: jrecano@ced.uab.es. 1

Introduction The migration responses to the 2008 Spanish financial crisis captured most of the attention from migration scholars, but the greatest consideration was given to return migration (Ramos & Matano 2013; Cerrutti & Maguid 2014; Recaño & Jáuregui 2014), followed by remigration (Larramona 2013; Mateos 2015; Pereira 2012; Mas-Giralt 2016). However, the changes in internal migration were relatively overlooked with a few exceptions (Quintero- Lesmes 2015; Recaño & de Miguel Luken 2012). Joining the literature that bridges the gap between internal and international migration (King et al. 2008; Czaika & de Haas 2012; Czaika 2012), this paper argues return and remigration to be competing responses to internal migration. We argue that the simultaneous assessing of these three movements is as important as the individual study of them, at least aiming to understand the diversity of responses adopted by immigrants to face the increase in unemployment. Based on the analysis of Spanish Residential Variation Statistics, we discuss the changes in migration occurred between 2006 and 2013 for internal and international movements of foreign immigrants from Spain, paying particular attention the Latin American origins. Latin Americans were responsible for most of the growth of foreign population in Spain for almost a decade and led together with Africans the return migration outflow since 2009. They also contributed to the recovery of internal migration before the recession, and still played a significant role after the advent of the crisis; between 1998 and 2014 the total number of movements of this origin was three times the observed for the native population (Recaño & de Miguel Luken 2012). During the crisis, return and remigration flows of the native and foreign-born population increased while the intensity of internal migration first declined and remained stable after 2008. Another consequence of the economic collapse was expressed changing the geography of immigrants ’ internal migration: before the crisis, Madrid, Barcelona, the Mediterranean Coast, together with the Canary and Balears Islands, were the main immigrant-receiving regions. After 2008 only Madrid and Barcelona have remained in this group (Quintero-Lesmes 2015). Despite all the underwent transformations in the inner and international migration pattern of Latin Americans in Spain, the research agenda has predominantly focused on return migration (Koolhaas 2015; Recaño & Jáuregui 2014), and returnees´ socio-economic integration (Cerrutti & Maguid 2014; Prieto & Koolhaas 2014; Prieto 2016; Vela Peón & Cabezas 2015). Exceptionally, Larramona (2013) assesses the determinants of both return and remigration from Spain. Nevertheless, her work does not account for internal migration, nor distinguishes between remigration and outmigrations with ignored destination, and focuses on the period before the economic recession (2002-2009). The migration responses to the recession adopted by male Mexican migrants in the United States did introduce a major precedent for this paper by considering both internal and international mobility responses together. Torre-Cantalapiedra & Giorguli (2015) accounted for return as an alternative response to internal migration within the United States. Based on individual longitudinal data for the period 1942-2011, they assessed the preference for these reactions pointing to return as the preferred strategy to face the 2

American economic crisis. However, their findings acknowledge significant transformations in the intensity and direction of internal migration of Mexicans in the United States too 1 . Our perspective shares with this last article the interest on including inner and international mobility responses to the economic recession, but differs in the approach adopted. We were not able of estimating the hazard of both types of events since we worked with the Residential Variation Statistics published by the Spanish National Statistics Office, which does not include information on those that do not move. Instead, we can compare the probability of opting for any form of international outmigration respect of internal migration, similarly to Larramona´s study of outmigration from Spain for 2002-2009 (Larramona 2013). Along these lines, we discuss which individual and territorial characteristics orient migrants in preferring return, remigration or outmigration with an unknown destination, in respect to moving internally. The reason for including this last category responds to the significant share of outmigrations captured as a result of the statistical operation of clearing the Population Register of foreign-born individuals who do not renew their inscription after two years (Ortega et al. 2013; Gil 2010). First, we describe the intensity of inter-regional migration, return and other forms of outmigration. Second, using multinomial logit modeling we analyze the demographic characteristics of migrants and the incidence of context variables at origin on the probability of moving abroad over moving internally, first for all origin, and then for Latin Americans only. The inclusion of dummy variables for three periods of time (2006-2008 pre-crisis, 2009-2010 economic collapse, and 2011-2013 recession) contributed to explaining if the prevalence of each migration responses varies according to the different contexts of origin and stages of the economic downturn. The paper structures in six sections, five?? following this introduction. In the second section, we discuss the literature centered on the evidence for return, remigration and internal migration of foreign-born population in Spain with a focus on Latin American immigrants. In the third section, we present the data and methods used. In the fourth section, we discuss the key findings for the intensity of internal and international migration of foreign-born population. In the fifth section, we introduce the results of multivariate analysis of the determinants of different forms of international outmigration. Finally, in the sixth section, we draw the main conclusions and provides a general discussion of results. 1 Regarding the individual determinants for both kinds of migration, they point to the duration of the stay, the legal status in the receiving country and the occupation as the main factors explaining mobility trends in 1946-2011. 3