Marriage and cohabitation patterns in an immigration country: specificities of Latin-American migrants in Spain

Clara Cortina, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Xiana Bueno García, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

During the last decade, international immigration flows have undergone a dramatic growth in Spain. Previous research has reported increasing percentages of marriages in which at least one of the spouses is foreigner. The aim of this article is to analyze union formation patterns of foreigners specially focusing on the type of union they are involved into, either marriage or consensual unions. Particular attention will be made to Latin-American migrants, which represent the most important part of international migrants in Spain. We use the Spanish marriage records and population registers and, alternatively, 2007 Spanish Labor Force Survey, considering the stock of both legal and consensual unions. Moreover, census microdata delivered by IPUMS project is used to obtain elements from the patterns in the countries of origin. Multi-level models are applied separately for men and women to explore the likelihood of being in a consensual union rather than in a marriage.