Immigration and Residential Change in Spain

Abstract

Recent foreign immigration has become the most important sociodemographic process in Spain. It impinges on many different social aspects, among them, the interrelationship between housing and population. More than 5 million immigrants have arrived during the last 10 years, responsible for about half of new households created since 2001. The size of Spanish demographic change due to immigration, as well as the predominance of a housing model based on home ownership, justifies the interest of the study. Attention will be focused on access to home ownership by long‐standing immigrants, who arrived between 1981 and 1991, observed in the 1991 and 2001 censuses, and compared with Spaniards. Their residential patterns can help us to predict the impact of the current immigration on the Spanish housing system. The conclusions point towards the beginning of a new heterogeneity in the Spanish housing system caused by a deficit of assimilation of the households with immigratory antecedents. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Transition towards homeownership among foreign‐born immigrants in Spain from a life‐course approach

“…The housing policy has been quite weak in the last decades, which has led to self‐regulation of the free market, resulting in continuous speculation over housing prices. There are strong efforts from the mortgage and housing sectors to promote homeownership among immigrants in comparison to other countries (Módenes and Bayona, 2008).…”

Demographic Analysis of Latin American Immigrants in Spain

“…The picture from the housing realm is also very indicative and suggests striking differences between Latin Americans and Africans. Although an important part of the stock of rented housing is occupied by immigrant households, Latin Americans have clearly progressed towards home ownership over the past decade, a situation that is hardly seen for Africans despite the starting point for both immigrant groups was very similar two decades ago (Módenes et al 2013). Africans not only face worse conditions to enter home ownership, but also cope with common negative attitudes in the rental market where they are over-represented.…”

Mortgage finance and culture

“…As explained by Vono‐de‐Vilhena and Bayona‐Carrasco (), just as homeownership was viewed as the best option and the leading choice among Spanish young people seeking a first dwelling in Spain, it was also an important goal for immigrants. Indeed, the Spanish residential system strongly encouraged immigrants to reproduce natives’ homeownership behavior (Módenes & Bayona, ). Pareja‐Eastaway () explains that the preference for ownership among immigrants in Spain is explained by “low interest rates and high rents, a continued period of economic expansion, the scarcity and bad quality of rented dwellings, and expectation of increases in the value of the acquired dwellings.” Leal and Dominguez (2008) also explain that high numbers of migrants from developing countries contributed to the exhaustion of the small rental market, putting more pressure on the housing market as a whole, thus leading to an increase in the construction of housing units in areas with a larger immigrant population.…”

“…Módenes and Bayona () explain that, in contrast with other countries such as the United States, there were strong efforts from the mortgage and housing sectors to promote homeownership among immigrants. Although immigrants represented about 11 percent of the population in 2007, as much as 37 percent of the new homeowners and more than 30 percent of the new mortgages during the first half of 2007 were to immigrants (Garcia & Raya, ).…”