Inequality and Opportunities in the Spanish Regions: The Role of Immigration

The aim of this article is to analyze inequality and inequality of opportunity (IOp) for the Spanish regions Autnomous Communities (CCAA), paying main attention to the situation of foreign immigrants. For this purpose, we use the European Social Survey of Income and Living Conditions database and some variables regarding individuals’ perceptions about immigration from the European Social Survey. We find that both income inequality and IOp increase between 2004 and 2010 for the great majority of the Spanish regions. Moreover, we observe convergence between regions in terms of IOp, while there is not convergence in terms of income inequality. In addition, the contribution of the different variables used as circumstances to estimate IOp varies greatly. The contribution to IOp of being an immigrant experienced a considerable and worrying increase, whereas the importance of family background characteristics is reduced to a great extent. Likewise, the analysis in deep of the situation of immigrants provides some interesting evidence. Firstly, we show that immigrant population experienced a downturn in their situation in terms of income; secondly, we find that, according to individuals’ perceptions about immigration, as the share of immigrants rises, there is an improvement in their impact in cultural life.