In Spain, immigrants and natives respond to different consumption patterns that mark the differences between the two groups, and are especially notable with regard to housing. A study by Joan Monràs, a full professor with the Department of Economics and Business at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), associate researcher at CREI and associate research professor at the Barcelona School of Economics (BSE), explores the differential consumption patterns of immigrants and natives. He concludes that differences in personal and cultural tastes and preferences account for most of these peculiarities in consumption, beyond standard socio-economic aspects such as income, geographical location or household size (number of individuals living in a dwelling). This pattern also explains the differences between renting and purchasing housing, where immigrants clearly opt for renting.

In his study, published in the BSE’s Working Papers, Joan Monràs has used data from the Spanish Family Budget (EPF) survey, published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), to characterize the consumption patterns of immigrants and study the extent to which this community can affect host economies. In the first part, he analyses whether immigrants consume in the same types of sectors as native workers, and documents the major differences between the two groups: “Immigrant households are younger, more numerous, tend to have lower incomes, are more urban, slightly less educated and, above all, are much more likely to rent rather than own their place of residence”, the author points out.

Consumption in the housing sector

In the housing sector, currently, the fraction of natives in market rental units in Spain is around 7%, while the fraction in market rentals among EU and non-EU migrant households is 51% and 68%, respectively.1 As a result, immigrants, especially non-EU immigrants, are disproportionately important for the rental market, accounting for more than 37% of total expenditures in the rental market.

But to what are these big differences due? Joan Monràs investigates whether the variability in spending patterns between immigrants and natives is related to socioeconomic factors (such as income, household size or geographical location), or, on the contrary, to “unobservable” aspects, which he calls “differences in taste”. The author concludes that the latter group of factors, linked to personal and cultural preferences, determines almost all of the variation in expenditure between the different sectors of the economy.

These differences in tastes are the reason why immigrants are more likely to rent than natives, even though they may have the same socioeconomic characteristics. Thus, among tenants, differences in taste are behind most of this variation, up to more than 85%.

Regularization by the first Zapatero government reduces but does not eliminate the gap between non-EU immigrants and natives when it comes to renting or buying

In a last section of his study, Joan Monràs analyses whether the extraordinary regularization of immigrants implemented in 2005 under the first government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (granting of work permits to almost 600,000 non-EU migrants) brought about changes in consumption patterns between the latter and indigenous workers, with a particular focus on decisions within the housing market. He finds that the proportion of non-EU migrants in rented housing decreased by 10 to 15 percentage points after regularization, both compared to native households with the same socio-economic characteristics and compared to EU migrants.

According to the author, most of this effect can be explained by the increase in the proportion of non-EU immigrants who took out a mortgage to purchase a home: “While the gap in housing ownership decisions (rental or purchase) narrowed once non-EU immigrants obtained work permits, there continued to be a substantial gap, suggesting that the differences between immigrants and natives when deciding whether to buy or rent reflect not only labour market opportunities, but also the variety of tastes”.

Reference work: Monràs, J. (August 2025) “Immigrant Assimilation Beyond the Labor Market”, BSE Working Papers | 1517