4.2 Non-communitarian immigrant women in the work market in spain  (Page 4/18)

Until a real alternative is found to the patriarchal organization of social reproduction and in absence of a supply of daily services directed to the set of citizens in the case of Spain, we must be asked, who takes care of the tasks relating to social reproduction – taking care of elders, children, etc. – while women have a professional life, work 8 hours daily or more outside the home, and lack time?; how many “other” women must work under the most precarious conditions to be able to maintain our social and economic system and to face denominated care crisis ?

But the “internationalization of reproduction” is not the only factor that helps to understand the feminization of the flows. We must also resort to another explanatory factor: the normalization of the phenomenon of the migration in Spain. In Spain, a society that has been characterized to carry out migratory flows towards central and western Europe during the postwar period, is not until the mid-80’s that international immigration began to appear as a “social fact.” From this date, the progressive arrival of workers from Africa, Latin America, Asia, and East Europe have been assisted, due to, among other factors, the existence of an effect from the logic of the reconstruction of the work market that takes place in Spain during those years (Cachón 1997). As it has happened in all the societies that have been receiving migratory flows along of their history, as the new residents are settling more or less permanently, the arrival of women through the processes of familiar regrouping has increased. This has been the pattern mainly followed by the female migrations coming from Africa, Asia, or countries like Pakistan.

The female immigrant in spain: some statistical data

The most suitable source, in Spain, for the quantification of the number of foreigners is the Municipal Register of Inhabitants elaborated by the INE with annual regularity since 1998. The foreign population in Spain has reached, according to the data of the Municipal Register to January 1, 2004, 3,034,326 people (7.02% of the total registered population). On the basis the data of the Statistical Yearbook of Extranjería 2003, gathered by the Ministry of Interior, is a total of 1,647,011 foreign residents in Spain with card or permission of residence since December 31, 2003, 65.3% of the total pertaining to the General Regime. This number conveys an increase of 24.4% with respect to December of the previous year, and a total of 39 foreigners with card or authorization of residence for each 1000 inhabitants. Of the comparison of data of the Register with those of the Ministry of Interior, the foreigners of the Register surpass the legal residents in more than 1,300,000 people, which allow approximating the important volume the irregular population situation has in Spain.

Although the percentage of women for the set of Spain (almost 45% of the total foreigners with card or authorization of residence) puts in evidence the feminization of the flows, the proportion of women varies according to the origin continent; so that while the countries pertaining to the European Economic Space present a practically egalitarian distribution of sexes (47.7% of women) – according to data of the Statistical Yearbook of Extranjería-, Africa and Asia has a predominate profile of masculine immigration (32.5% and 40.5% of women, respectively); on the contrary, in the Latin American countries, with a 54.5% of women, a noticeable feminization of the migratory flows occurs.