Determinants of seasonal circular migration during Spain’s rural exodus, 1955–1973

Internal circular migration has historically played an important role in the mobility patterns and assimilation of migrants in Western societies, with a particularly significant and persistent role in Spain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This article analyses the determinants of this migration path during the Spanish rural exodus, focusing on a critical scenario: the Spanish tourism boom in the Balearic Islands. The results suggest that the tourism industry offered abundant low-skilled job opportunities with very low barriers to entry, rewarded with higher wages than in the regions of origin. Thus, the emerging tourism phenomenon represented a significant opportunity for those more penalised by the rural penalty, such as the very poor households of southern Spain from isolated districts. For these migrants, the findings suggest that the factors that increased the likelihood of engaging in circular migration were both ‘voluntary’, such as job and investment opportunities in the origin, and ‘involuntary’, linked to the seasonality of the host labour market, labour regulations and housing shortages. These constraints to permanent settlement were easier to overcome for those who could rely on migrant networks established in the pre-tourism era and had gendered consequences.