Regional differences in the effect of inmigration on poverty rates in Spain

This paper evaluates to what extent differences among Spanish regions in the composition of their population and in contextual characteristics can explain regional differences with respect to the effect of immigration on poverty rates. Our study aims to advance research on the structural and institutional dimension to the predominantly individually oriented study field of poverty. To facilitate an integrated approach of individual and contextual dimensions we took advantage of multilevel techniques to test differences among Spanish regions in the gap related to immigration in the risk of being poor. We make use of the European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions for the year 2008. From our analyses, we can conclude that both, contextual and individual effects explain regional differences in the poverty gap due to immigration.