Spain: large-scale regularisation and its impacts on labour market and social policy

Abstract

Regularisation measures in Spain have formed part of an overall immigration policy that until a few years ago was geared more towards border security than to meeting the demands of the labour market. However, the regularisation campaign in 2005 was different: it enjoyed widespread popular support and sought to combat the informal economy and grant employment rights to immigrants who were in fact working. As a result, the labour market is now better regulated, but efforts to combat segmentation have not been so successful. Furthermore, the regularisation campaigns were inadequately funded, and failed to bring about sufficient improvements in public policies.