Emparejamiento en españa

Marriage Patterns of the Foreign-Born Population in a New Country of Immigration: The Case of Spain1
¾nternational ⅞arriageArticle⅞igrationoreignOriginalUK Migration Migration Studies of New pain XXX © 2008 by atterns of theReview orn opulation in York. All rights reserved 1747-7379 0197-9183 International IMRE Oxford, the Center Ltd Blackwell Publishing for eview

Clara Cortina Trilla AlbertEsteve Andreu Domingo Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Center for Demographic Studies

We use 2001 Spanish census microdata and multivariate logistic regression analysis to explore differences in marriage patterns between the foreign-born population in Spain, a country that has experienced a dramatic increase in international migration rates in the last decade. In particular, we examineseparately the prevalence of being in a consensual and in an endogamous union for a selected and representative group of origins. Results show that after controlling for individual and union characteristics, major differences in cohabitation between groups disappear while major differences in endogamy prevail. This suggests that, when appropriate data are available, future research should take intoaccount contextual factors.

1. INTRODUCTION
Spain has experienced an accelerated and remarkable growth in its population of foreign nationals during the 21st century. The trends observed in flows do not differ from those registered in the majority of the western European countries: acceleration, changes in age and sex structure of migrants, the emergence of new nationalities, and irregularity(Salt, Clarke, and Schmidt, 2000; Sopemi, 2004; Salt, 2005). However, the magnitude and intensity of the growth of immigratory flows makes it an exceptional case in the European context: In Spain in the late eighties, the reversal that would convert a traditionally emigration country into an immigration one had only just begun (Muñoz Pérez and Izquierdo, 1989). In 2000, with scarcely 2.3% of the totalpopulation being
1 This study should be considered a product of the projects El Impacto de la población extranjera en la formatión de la pareja en España (SEJ2007-60014); Comportamientos demográficos diferenciales e integración social de la población inmigrada y de sus descendientes en España (CSO2008-04778/SOCI) and Migraciones internas, constitución familiar y empleo: dinámicas temporales yterritoriales (SEJ2004-01534) granted by the national R+D plan of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. Albert Esteve is “Ramón y Cajal” Researcher for the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science.”

© 2008 by the Center for Migration Studies of New York. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-7379.2008.00151.x

IMR Volume 42 Number 4 (Winter 2008):877–902

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878International Migration Review

of foreign citizenship, Spain was still bringing up the rear among countries of the European Union. According to the Municipal Register of Population for January 1, 2007, the number of foreign nationals had risen above four million people placing Spain at the head of the ranking in relative terms (9.9% of foreign nationals, even more if we consider the population bornabroad). The magnitude of the increase is such that 72% of Spanish population growth over the 1996–2006 period was due to the increase in the foreign population. This extraordinary growth of the international migration flows has been accompanied by a diversification of the countries of origin and by an increase of Latin Americans. At the beginning of the nineties, of the 15 foreign nationalities mostrepresented in Spain, only three were not European (Morocco, the US, and the Philippines), whereas after the dramatic increase at the end of the 90s and early part of the 21st century, Colombians and Ecuadorians alone represented a fourth of the total number of foreign nationals according to the 2001 census (Domingo and Martínez, 2006). Together with population growth, the incidence of immigrant...