Understanding Immigrant Population Growth Within Urban Areas: A Spatial Econometric Approach

Abstract

During the last two decades, many studies have described the evolution of the spatial distribution of immigrant groups within an urban area (for example, by using segregation indexes). Nevertheless, the factors that could explain the growth of the immigrant population within an urban area have not yet been fully explored. Moreover, the studies referred to have mainly been conducted in countries that have traditionally received large populations of immigrants, such as the USA, Canada, the UK and Northern Europe. In regard to European cities, the case of the Barcelona metropolitan area (BMA) is particularly relevant: the percentage of immigrants in the total population has increased significantly within a very short period of time (from 5.05 % in 2001 to 15.16 % in 2008, 12.03 % in 2013). Consequently, the main objective of this study is to examine the factors influencing the relative variation in the percentage of non-EU immigrants during the period of stronger growth (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008). From a methodological point of view, we constructed two spatial models at the census tract level: the spatial lag and spatial error models. The predictors that we selected encompass several dimensions: socioeconomic status (unemployment, low education, household income and blue-collar workers), immigrant diversity (entropy), housing (small dwellings and condition of dwelling), and population density and distance to the central business district (CBD). According to the results of the spatial models, the most important factors explaining the growth of immigrant populations are, in descending order: household income, small dwellings and immigrant diversity.

Refugees’ resettlement in a Canadian mid-sized Prairie city: examining experiences of multiple forced migrations

“…Our findings align with recent studies on Tamil immigrants (George and Jettner, 2014) and Karen refugees (Clark, 2014) suggesting that lack of community preparedness and cultural diversity can be detrimental to refugees' health in spite of communities' willingness to welcome them. In a study on immigrants' spatial distribution in Barcelona, Martori et al (2014) report that greater cultural diversity is a major predictor of resettlement among immigrants and underpins their choice of larger urban centres. Consequently, smaller cultural diversity and lack of readiness of second-and third-tier Canadian Prairie cities to provide adequate and culturally competent health and social services to refugees with complex needs raise some doubts about healthy and secure resettlement.…”

La distribución espacial de hogares perceptores de prestaciones económicas individualizadas: una comparación de casos

“…Durante las últimas décadas, las ciudades españolas han experimentado varios procesos de transformación socioeconómica y demográfica, con importantes efectos sobre la configuración socio-residencial de los barrios (Alguacil-Gómez et al, 2014;Cruz et al, 2017;Nel•lo, 2018;Rubiales-Pérez, 2020;Salom & Fajardo, 2017;Sorando & Leal, 2019). En primer lugar, la intensa recepción de flujos migratorios internacionales ha contribuido a poner de manifiesto la existencia de otros mecanismos -menos visibles -que condicionan el acceso al mercado de la vivienda, vinculados a la población extranjera, cuya elección residencial se ve notablemente influida por distintos factores como las prácticas residenciales discriminatorias (Iglesias-Pascual, 2019;Olmos & Garrido, 2010), la existencia previa de redes de acogida (Gaete-Fiscella & Mena-Martínez, 2016;Juárez et al, 2006) o la diversidad étnica del barrio (Martori et al, 2016).…”

International labor migration of Russian pilots

“…Концентрируясь на факторах макросреды, многие авторы (см., напр. : [Sohn, 2012;Henning, Zarnekow, Kaufmann, 2013;Cheng, Young, 2014;Dodd, Humphries, 2016;Martori, Apparicio, 2016]) упускали из виду влияние факторов малой социальной группы (семьи), рассмотренных A. Нивалайненом [Nivalainen, 2004] на данных Финляндии, который обнаружил связь между жизненным циклом семьи и возможностью переезда в поисках работы. M. Ванор [Vanore, 2016] на примере Грузии показал тесную взаимосвязь между миграцией взрослого члена семьи и возрастом детей: наличие несовершеннолетних детей является сдерживающим фактором миграции.…”