¿Neo-Hispanic Migration? The impact of the economic recession on Spanish emigration

Abstract

One of the main effects of the current crisis is re-emerging phenomenon of Spanish emigration, especially since year 2011. This paper examines the growth of emigration from 2008 to 2012, using disaggregated data by origin, age, sex as well as geography detail at provincial level from the Residential Variation Statistics. The analyses distinguish between native-born and foreign-born with and without the Spanish nationality, and highlight recent trends as a result of the prolonged economic recession and its impact on international migration. Although the use of this dataset which contains time series data enable us to provide a relevant picture of the main demographic profiles of current emigration, the data too have uncertainties embedded within, not least because many of the new emigrants have not registered yet at the destination country. However, the data examination allows us to identify different patterns, including the main recipient countries as well as the provincial geography of emigration, and the main demographic profiles of emigrants. The results shed some light of what could be considered as Neo-Hispanic migration given the apparent diversity of outflows.