Migrant children and inequality in twenty-first-century Spain: The risk of living with no working adults in times of crisis

This article analyses the impact of the crises on the level of inequality between native and migrant origin children in twenty-first-century Spain. We use microdata from the Spanish Labour Force Survey (2000–2022) to study the risk for migrant and native children of living in a household with no working adults. We hypothesize that the assimilation of the immigrant population—after more than two decades in the country—might have contributed to reducing the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. Results show that the 2008 crisis substantially increased the gap between migrant and native children, while the impact of the pandemic has been milder. Moreover, social origin has a stronger protective effect for native children compared with children with a migrant background, especially during periods of economic downturn. However, we find that among children of low social origin, migrant children are less likely to live in a household with no working adults.