Key messages
- Immigration from Asia is relatively minor in Spain, something that sets it apart from other European countries, where this type of migration constitutes one of the most numerous. The population of Chinese origin accounts for a third of all Asian immigrants to Spain, followed by Pakistanis.
- In terms of educational attainment levels, Asian immigration occupies an intermediate position between its Latin American and African counterparts, with a major difference in favour of women.
- The activity rate among Chinese male and female immigrants is extremely high, unlike among women of Indian and especially Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin, the overwhelming majority (75%) of whom are neither employed nor seeking work. The unemployment rate among the entire group is very low, whether due to the inactivity of women from the Indian sub-continent or the high rate of occupation among Chinese immigrants.
- There is a pronounced concentration of Asian immigrants in the retailing and hospitality sectors, significantly higher than among other immigrant groups or native-born Spaniards.
- Almost half of Asian immigrants in work are self-employed or entrepreneurs, a feature that is unique to this group. This fact and their sectoral concentration reflect a pronounced degree of occupational isolation on the part of the Asian community, especially the Chinese.
- Although 15% of such immigrants have been granted Spanish nationality, their presence in the public sector is virtually nil.
- The educational drop-out rate among young people aged 16-20 originating from Asia is high, at 23%, but substantially lower than among Latin American and African migrants (34% and 35% respectively).
Analysis
This paper is the fourth in a series the Elcano Royal Institute is conducting into how immigrants are integrating into Spain’s employment market. The first, titled ‘Immigration and the labour market in Spain’, analysed the entire immigrant population and its most salient characteristics in terms of its relationship with the employment market, while its two successors scrutinised Latin American and African groups respectively. The present analysis focuses on immigrants from Asia, a group dominated by the Chinese-born population.
As with the other papers in this series, the main sources used are the Continuous Municipal Register (Padrón Continuo de Población), the Continuous Population Statistics (Estadística Continua de Población) and the Active Population Survey (Encuesta de Población Activa, EPA –EPA microdata for the fourth quarter of 2024–), all compiled by the National Statistics Institute (INE). Based on such data, the analysis focuses on the fundamental features of Asian immigration in Spain, and subsequently sets out information regarding its integration into the employment market, for both the whole group and the two subgroups whose sample size in the EPA enables statistically significant results to be obtained: Chinese immigrants and those who come from Hindustan or the Indian sub-continent.[1]
The context: size, evolution, composition and characteristics of Asian immigration in Spain
As mentioned in the other papers in this series, it is worth recalling the definition of international migrants used by the United Nations Population Division: all those who live in a country other than where they were born, regardless of their legal status in the country where they live. Thus, defined as ‘born abroad’, according to the most recent aggregate data from the INE’s Continuous Population Statistics, the total number of Asian immigrants in Spain on 1 January 2025 stood at 616,222 (Figure 1), accounting for 1% of all those resident in the country and 7% of the immigrant population. Their presence has been on the rise since the end of the 20th century, when traditional but small Philippine and Indian communities were joined by growing Chinese immigration. Since the mid-1990s, Chinese immigration has constituted the main Asian diaspora with a presence in Spain.
Currently, based on data for 1 January 2025, Chinese immigration accounts for 34% of all Asian immigration (209,320 people) (Figure 2), followed by Pakistani (135,696) and Indian (73,951) immigration. These last two groups have undergone significant growth in the last 10 years, doubling their size. Among the rest of the Asian-origin population, the only community that exceeds 30,000 members is the one originating from the Philippines (60,756).
Virtually all the Asian-origin immigration in Spain comes from low per-capita income countries, with the presence of those from wealthy countries, such as Japan, South Korea, Israel and Taiwan being minimal. And as in the case of all immigration from countries with lower per-capita income than Spain’s, the age distribution is skewed towards groups with higher rates of employment activity, aged 25-49, where more than half of all individuals (55%) are located (Figure 3).
As in the case of African immigration, although to a lesser extent, there is a masculine predominance in overall Asian immigration (55%), but with major differences between the main source countries: whereas in immigration from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India the percentage of men reaches levels similar to those observed among African immigrants (74%, 71% and 63% respectively), immigration from the Philippines and China shows a female preponderance (65% and 54%).
The largest concentration of Asian immigrants in Spain is found in Catalonia (Figure 4), and more specifically the province of Barcelona, where a significant presence of people is recorded originating from the main source countries. Madrid is the province with the second largest presence of Asian immigrants, but attributable in this case to Chinese and Philippine immigrants, with modest numbers of Indian and Pakistani immigrants. As is the case with immigration in general, the presence of Asian immigrants in large areas to the west of the peninsula is negligible.
Asian immigrants’ integration into the Spanish labour market
Based on the EPA microdata (4th quarter of 2024), the main features that characterise the mode and intensity of Asian immigrants’ integration into the Spanish employment market are set out in what follows. The data refer to individuals aged 25-59, with the goal of excluding youths still in training and adults already retired from the employment market, thereby forming a group that is comparable to their native counterparts (defined as being born in Spain to two parents who were also born in Spain), among whom occupational activity is extremely low outside this age range. The data are also compared with those of immigrants originating from other countries with per-capita incomes lower than Spain’s[2] and they are similarly broken down internally in order to obtain a comparison of the two Asian sub-groups whose sample size in the EPA is sufficiently large to derive a statistically significant comparison and which jointly account for 82% of the total: immigrants from China and the Indian sub-continent (the combined total of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis).
One factor on which employment integration depends is educational attainment level, an area where Asian immigrants aged 25-59 occupy an intermediate position between their Latin American and African counterparts (Figure 5). Although 2% of Asian immigrants are illiterate, at the other end of the spectrum 26% possess a higher education qualification. Data for the educational attainment levels of immigrants from the Indian sub-continent reflect a higher level in general than that of immigrants originating from China. Internally, despite the reduced size of the sub-samples of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, significant differences are observable in favour of the Indians.
Both among Chinese immigrants and those from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh there is an education gap in favour of women (Figure 6): the percentage of women with a university qualification is much higher than among men.
With regard to the activity and employment rates,[3] the data relating to Asian immigrants aged 25-59 as a whole reveal higher figures than those observed in the case of African immigrants, but lower than those relating to Latin American immigrants. Such total figures conceal a major internal difference between the two Asian sub-groups, however: whereas Chinese immigrants display an activity rate identical to the native population and a higher rate of employment (Figure 7), the figures are much lower in the case of immigrants from the Indian sub-continent.
The low activity rate among immigrants from the Indian sub-continent is attributable to its female component’s very low participation in the employment market (Figure 8), at just 25%. Despite their superior education, the difference with the male activity rate is 67 percentage points, a much larger gap than that found amongst any other immigrant group in Spain. By contrast, 89% of female Chinese immigrants in Spain are either in work or are actively seeking work, a higher percentage than both their male peers and native Spanish women.
The high employment rate among Chinese immigrants (both male and female) together with the low activity rate among women from the Indian sub-continent account for the low unemployment rate among Asian workers in general, namely 5% (Figure 9), a lower percentage than the native population and technically equivalent to full employment.
Asian immigrants aged 25-59 are employed overwhelmingly in two sectors: retailing (mainly on a small scale, both in food and non-specialised items) and hospitality. The two sectors account for three quarters (74%) of workers originating from Asia (Figure 10), almost four times the figure for native Spaniards. This occupational clustering is even more pronounced in the case of Chinese immigrants (83% work in retailing and hospitality). Outside these two sectors, and apart from a minor participation in the manufacturing sector, immigrants from China and the Indian sub-continent differentiate themselves with a greater presence amongst the former in professional and scientific activities and amongst the latter in the agricultural and construction sectors.
Asian immigration in its totality accounts for only 1.3% of the total working population in Spain, but it is proportionally much more prominent in retailing and hospitality (see Figure 11). Owing to the concentration of female Philippine immigrants in domestic activities, this is another sector in which the participation of Asian-origin immigrants exceeds the aforementioned 1.3% of all those working in Spain. The EPA does not record any Chinese immigrants employed in domestic service.
In terms of occupational situation, the Asian community’s profile is by some distance the most singular of all those scrutinised. First, as many as 47% work for themselves (Figure 12), whether as self-employed workers or as entrepreneurs with employees, which is more than three times the proportion of native Spaniards and more than four times that of Latin Americans and Africans. These figures are even higher for Chinese immigrants, where those who work for themselves outnumber those who work for others by a factor of almost two. It is highly likely that a large proportion of those who work for others are in turn employed by entrepreneurs from the same geographical origins, although this possibility, which emerges from anecdotal evidence, cannot be confirmed by the existing databases. This scenario, combined with a virtually non-existent presence in the public sector, points to the Asian community’s pronounced occupational isolation, and the Chinese community’s in particular.
More than two-thirds of Asian workers resident in Spain (68.5%) hold posts in the ‘hospitality, personal and protection services and salespeople’ category (Figure 13), whereas those employed in ‘basic occupations’ are restricted to 9%, a much lower figure than the other two large groups of immigrants originating from regions with lower per-capita income than Spain’s, namely Latin America and Africa.
Asian immigrants coincide with their Latin American and African counterparts in being underrepresented in the ‘white collar’ occupations. In the case of Asians, these occupations are dominated by those originating from China, India and the Philippines, with no detectable presence of other source countries in the EPA. As in the case of African immigrants, Asian immigrants are completely absent from the armed forces, where Spanish nationality is a precondition for recruitment. Only 15% of all Asian-origin immigrants in Spain (in the 25-59 age group) have Spanish nationality. The percentage is much higher in the exceptional case of Philippine immigrants (for all age groups), at 33%, because those born in the Philippines, like Latin Americans, Andorrans, Portuguese, Equatorial Guineans and Sephardic Jews, are exempted from the rule that in general requires a legal minimum of 10 years’ residence prior to applying for citizenship. But even here, the relatively easy route to gaining citizenship does not translate into a presence in the Spanish public administration or the armed forces.
With regard to Asian immigrants’ earned incomes, the statistics published by the Social Security Administration (TGSS),[4] which is the sole source available and that include only data relating to people of Chinese nationality, reveal two striking facts. First, the average taxable income of Chinese taxpayers in 2025 was just €1,538, a figure that is lower than that of the citizens from the six Latin American countries included in the TGSS statistics and of Moroccans, despite the non-existent presence of Chinese people in ‘basic occupations’, which are those that generally earn the lowest salaries. Meanwhile, the gender wage gap in favour of men is only €20 (Figure 14), easily the lowest of all the differentiated nationalities, including Spaniards. The reason underlying both anomalies is likely to be the very high proportion of entrepreneurs and self-employed workers among the Chinese community who, unlike wage-earning workers, have a degree of flexibility in reducing their declared taxable income. In this case, a lower level of declared taxable income does not therefore necessarily entail a lower real income.
Lastly, the educational statistics for Asian immigrants belonging to generation 1.5 (those who came to Spain as children or teenagers) mean that a gradual improvement in this community’s occupational integration and diversification is foreseeable. The educational drop-out rate among young people from Asia aged 16-20 is 23%, in an intermediate position between native Spaniards’ 15% and the 34% and 35% recorded by Latin Americans and Africans respectively (Figure 15). On the other hand, unlike the other groups, there is no gender gap in the drop-out statistics. The EPA sample of youngsters in this age group classified by origin (Chinese or from the Indian sub-continent) is too small to obtain significant results. In this case, the anecdotal evidence from Spain seems to suggest a lower educational drop-out rate and, in general, greater educational success among Chinese immigrants belonging to generation 1.5 or the second generation –compared with the average among other Asians, Latin Americans and Africans– but the EPA sample is too small to confirm this.
Conclusions
Asian immigration in Spain constitutes a very small part of the total, namely 7%, in clear contrast to the migratory picture in the centre and north of Europe (Germany, the UK, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, etc), where Asian immigrants form the largest group among their non-European counterparts. Spain does not have a major colonial past in Asia (barring the Philippines), whereas this colonial legacy explains in good measure the influx of large numbers of Asian immigrants to the UK and the Netherlands since the mid-20th century. Nor does Spain attract immigration from Turkey, the source of a significant proportion of immigration to the centre of Western Europe. When Turkish migration towards Europe started to take off in the 1960s, it coincided with a wave of outward migration from Spain, in other words with a phase in which Spain not only failed to attract but even shed population through migration. Lastly, asylum has been a relatively minor source of inbound migration into Spain, in contrast to countries in Northern and Central Europe, which have run asylum systems that have been fed essentially by Asian populations. When the asylum system in Spain started to take in considerable numbers, asylum-seekers of Asian origin proved to be a small minority compared with Latin Americans.
The educational attainment level of Asian immigrants in Spain as a group is intermediate between that of Latin Americans and Africans, featuring significant internal diversity and greater education among women. The activity rate is extremely high in the case of males and also in the case of Chinese women, but very low in the case of women from the Indian sub-continent, despite their relatively high educational attainment level.
There is a highly pronounced sectoral concentration of Asian immigration in retailing and hospitality, where the majority of Asian-origin immigrants work as entrepreneurs or as self-employed. This position in the employment market –with its emphasis on self-employment– is another of the major idiosyncrasies of Asian-origin immigration. It may be said that this immigrant population has created its own employment ‘niche’, which also translates into its negligible presence in other sectors that traditionally employ immigrants, such as construction and agriculture (in which Pakistani but not Chinese immigrants are employed) or in domestic service (where the Asian presence is restricted to Philippine workers). Asian immigration is also virtually absent from public-sector employment.
With a relatively low educational drop-out rate (in comparison with that of Latin American and African immigrants), the future employment integration of today’s young Asian immigrants is probably heading towards greater sectoral diversification. Be that as it may, in light of the small sample sizes for the various sub-groups (Chinese, Pakistanis, Indians and so on) in the EPA, the information in this regard makes it difficult to draw categorical conclusions.
[1] Although the Indian subcontinent or Hindustan geographically comprises India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, the sample that is referred to here as ‘Hindustanis’ is made up only of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, given the absence of immigrants from other countries in the EPA sample.
[2] The ‘Asian’ category in this analysis includes all those immigrants originating from the continent whose countries or territories of origin are included in the EPA, with the exception of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and Israel, who barely account for 4% of the Asian sample in the 25-59 age range. For more detailed information about the characteristics of these groupings see the ARI titled ‘Immigration and the labour market in Spain’.
[3] The activity rate is defined as the percentage of the population within the age range in question (in this case aged 25-59) that is either in work or is looking for work, while the employment rate is defined as the percentage of the population within the age range in question (in this case aged 25-59) that is employed. The unemployment rate is calculated on the basis of the total active population in this age range (not the total population in the age range).
[4] The EPA does not include questions about earnings, making it necessary to resort to the Social Security Administration’s statistics on average taxable income, where individuals are classified by nationality, not by country of birth. The maximum taxable income in 2025 is €4,909/month.
