Immigrants’ Decision to Stay in the Canary Islands: A Latent Class Approach

Abstract

Immigrants’ decision to stay in the Canary Islands: a latent class approach, Regional Studies. This paper presents evidence on the socioeconomic and psychological factors that explain international immigrants' decisions to stay in the Canary Islands. The data are modelled using a latent class binary approach that allows two types of migrant to be considered according to their level of probability of staying at the destination. The results show that psychological factors (negative emotions, expectations, social integration) are more important for those migrants with a low probability of staying. In addition, the circumstances at the destination (Spanish language, years of stay, number of migrations, remittances) are significant only for those migrants with a high probability of staying. These results have implications for immigration policies in both the origin and host regions.