Movilidad ocupacional y trayectorias laborales duales de los inmigrantes en Españael caso de los colombianos en la Comunidad de Madrid

Abstract

Immigration in Spain has become a phenomenon of great interest in recent years, due to its progressive increase since the 1980s, but especially to the vertiginous growth experienced between the years 2000-2008. This is due to different factors, in particular the demand for foreign workforce as a product of economic growth in the country. Thus, according to the 2011 Population and Housing Census, the migratory situation of a considerable percentage (80%) of foreign population associates its migratory situation with the labor activity, generating great uncertainties regarding the incorporation of this population in the Spanish labor market, and the processes involved over time. Nevertheless, on the understanding that the labor behavior of the different migratory groups varies depending on specific factors, this research has focused on a specific population, namely the Colombian community residing in the Madrid autonomous Region, which is considered as one of the actors of the recent immigration in Spain, the third largest population group of foreigners not belonging to the European Union. Due to its quantitative importance there is an increasing interest in the study of this population group, approached on the basis of different social science disciplines, but within a static vision of this population. In an effort to better understand the behavior of this group within the labor market and its chances of achieving an improved occupational mobility in Spain over time the present research will go beyond this static perspective. Many studies (Sanabria, 2008, Villarraga, 2009, Actis, 2009 and Echeverri, 2011) show that most workers in this group start with lower-skilled jobs, and their working conditions are worse than those of the natives. But what happens as time goes by? How are their laboral trajectories shaped and how is occupational mobility obtained within that population?..