The international migratory trajectories of immigrants in Spain: The incidence of family networks and other sociodemographical trends

Foreign population residing in Spain shows a high level of internal migration. However, few researches have analysed this topic and very few have analyzed the trajectories of the population before their arrival to Spain. In this study we have used the National Survey of Immigrants, as the source of data in order to analyze the migratory trajectories of the immigrant population prior to the arrival to the country. We present first an overview of the migratory trajectories, then we have applied a multivariate statistical analysis to determine which factors have a significant effect on these migration routes and, in particular, to determine which factors condition the more complex itineraries. The data provide abundant information on the ego, so besides the classic sociodemographic variables it is possible to study the influence of the migratory family background and the networks. The results show the importance of family networks on migration strategies among all the factors analyzed. © Scripta Nova, 2011.