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Differences in the use of minimum income programs by nationality: Income revenue assurance in the Basque country

Abstract:

This article makes a study of the recipients of the minimum income scheme existing in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, a region in Spain. For this purpose we analyze the data on this program's recipients during the period from 2004 to 2010, with the aim of testing a series of basic indicators for describing this collective and especially for comparing the autochthonous and immigrant populations. Besides determining the characteristics of the two collectives and identifying differential patterns on their presence in benefit provision, the final aim is to contribute to comparing certain existing perceptions on the use of social benefits by the immigrant collective. In the results we underscore differences between the socio-demographic profiles of the two collectives in aspects like age, sex, marital status or municipality of residence. At the same time, we analyze aspects like the duration of the period receiving benefits and we detect a greater receipt of social benefits by the foreign population. We also employ certain indices for identifying states of chronicity (maximum uninterrupted receipt for at least two years), which also reveal an increasingly unfavorable situation amongst foreigners and even make it possible to identify certain national collectives that stand out due to their greater chronicity - Romanians and sub-Saharan Africans.