Cocooning and Precariousness among Indian Immigrants in Spain : a demo-spatial analysis

Abstract

This paper forms a part of: the doctoral thesis of the first author, "Indian Diaspora to Spain: Demo- Spatial Analysis and Neighbourhood Relations", enrolled in the Demography PH.D. Program in Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), under the direction of Dr. Andreu Domingo; the I+D+I project Diversidad, segregación y vulnerabilidad: anàlisis sociodemográfico (CSO2014-53413-R) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PI: Andreu Domingo); and the project Inmigración extranjera, concentración territorial y efecto barrio en España, financed with a "Beca Leonardo para Investigadores y creadores culturales", BBVA Foundation (PI: Jordi Bayona).

At the turn of the new millennium, when Spain was passing through immigration boom period, the size of its Indian community also increased rapidly and reached to 40,580 individuals listed in the municipal register in 2015. Contrary to most of the immigrant groups in Spain, the number of Indian immigrants remained increasing despite a severe economic crisis (2008-2014). Along with their exponential growth, they had an intense residential and occupational segregation, which raises the risk of their isolation and socioeconomic exclusion from the host society. In this paper, our main objective is to explore the existence of material characteristics of a 'bubble' in Indian community in Spain. For this we are going: 1) to create two indicators, i.e. 'cocooning' and 'precariousness' (which for us are the basic characteristics of a bubble) based on socioeconomic and demographic variables available in 2011census data, 2) to compare the values of both indicators for Indians with other immigrant groups in Spain; and 3) to check the regional differences of these indicators in different Autonomous Communities in Spain. We have used micro-data from 2011 census records and municipal register (Padrón Continuo, 2015) of Spain. In conclusions, we found that the Indian immigrants in Spain have a high level of cocooning and a moderate level of precariousness, which converts their high concentration areas into "precarious bubbles"