Immigrants' responsiveness to labor market conditions and their impact on regional employment disparities: Evidence from Spain

Using data from the Spanish Labor Force Survey (Encuesta de Poblacio´n Activa) from 1999 through 2007, we explore the role of employment opportunities in explaining the growing immigrant flows of recent years. Subsequently, we investigate whether immigrant inflows have helped reduce regional employment disparities. Our results indicate that immigrants choose to reside in regions with higher employment rates for their particular skills. However, perhaps owing to its recent nature or the ability of the production infrastructure to absorb the increase in immigrant labor, the immigration shock seems to have lowered regional employment rate disparities only temporarily.