“To the South, Always to the South”. Factors Shaping Refugee’s Socio-Economic Integration in Spain

Abstract

This article, based on qualitative research, focuses on socioeconomic integration trajectories of the refugee population in Spain. In the period between 2014 and 2020, refugees’ arrivals in Spain have continuously increased. Despite protection provided by the Spanish Reception System, refugees emulate the same precarious integration outcomes as refugees in other developed countries, such as unemployment, underemployment, poor and unstable housing, low incomes and economic uncertainty, gender inequalities, etc. We believe that a holistic analysis of integration outcomes, overcoming traditional human-capital theories, must include other social and structural factors -economic and institutional frameworks, gender, and ethnic discrimination- that shape their settlement.

Keywords:

• Refugee
• integration
• labor
• ethnic-discrimination
• gender

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

1 With this quote, a Syrian refugee woman expressed in a rage her progressive downward spatial and socioeconomic mobility in Spain. Since she and her family left their initial refugee center in 2014, they have suffered ongoing residential displacements, always to the “south”, from the city center to the poorest residential areas, due to their lack of earnings and permanent jobs.

2 Asylum and First Time Asylum (FTA) applicants by citizenship, age and sex. Annual aggregated data (rounded) EUROSTAT. Available from: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/asylum-and-managed-migration/data/database [Accessed 22nd July 2020].

3 Ibidem.

4 Ibidem.

5 Asylum Act: Law 12/2009 of 30 October 2009, regulating the law of asylum and subsidiary protection Official Gazette No 263, 31 October 2009. Amended by: Law 2/2014 of 25 March 2014 Official Gazette No 74, 26 March 2014. Due to the absence of a Regulation to the 2009 Asylum Act, the 1995 Regulation – which regulates the previous Spanish Asylum Act - is still being currently applied in practice.

6 The Spanish Asylum Act provides that reception services shall be defined by way of Regulation (Articles 30(2) and 31(1) Asylum Act). However, detailed rules on the work within the Spanish RP are provided by a nonbinding handbook, as the Regulation implementing the Asylum Act has been pending since 2009. Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration. Reception Handbook 4.1, 1 June 2020, available in Spanish at: https://bit.ly/2XGSyy5.

7 A new Instruction has been adopted in January 2021 by the SSM establishing that asylum applicants can access the final phase only if they have been granted international protection, while the rest of them must “complete the full itinerary” in the previous phase. Considering the existing delays in resolution this reform may lead to further endangering the asylum-seeking population. SEM, Instruction 6/2020, 4 January 2021, available in Spanish at: https://bit.ly/3qSEhv3.