What determines exit from social assistance in Spain?

The aim of this article is two‐fold. Firstly, we try to identify the main socioeconomic characteristics that explain the dynamics of social assistance in Spain. Secondly, we carry out a number of tests to assess to what extent individual characteristics accounting for duration differ in the different types of exit from social assistance. Analysis of periods on social assistance shows that belonging to an ethnic minority and employability are the two main determining factors leading to prolonged spells of social assistance. The results also show a striking similarity between the profiles of exits from the programmes due to ‘successful reasons’ and due to fraud. Exits from the programmes for other reasons occur in a clearly different way.