Vulnerability of Latin American Migrant Families Headed by Women in Spain During the Great Recession: A Couple-Level Analysis

Abstract

One of the outcomes of the Great Recession has been the emerging pattern of households maintained exclusively by women. The analysis of intracouple characteristics is crucial in the context of job segregation by gender and by immigrant origin, such as in Spain. Using the panel version of the Spanish Labor Force Survey from 2008 to 2015, we analyze the transition of dual-earner couples to female-earner couples among Latin American and Spanish-born households. Our results suggest that migrant vulnerability is not only a consequence of a segregated labor market by gender and origin but is also the result of the partners’ relative occupational and family characteristics. We show that, unlike Spanish-born couples, the risk of Latin American families becoming female-headed is higher for those couples in which the female partner has the weakest position in the occupational scale and for those with children in the household.