48.8% of foreigners live in families where there is at least one person of Spanish nationality, 3.3% are registered in a collective residence and the remaining 47.9% in families whose members are all foreigners, according to data from the Population and Housing Census 2001. Altogether for this year there were 6,336 families made up exclusively of foreigners and 10,482 mixed families; among the latter, 15,198 persons were of non-Spanish nationality and 22,981 were Spanish.

With regard to 1991, the number of families whose members are all foreigners has multiplied by five –there were 1,227 in 1991- and by 2.5 for mixed families –4.175 in 1991-.

9.2% of foreigners live alone or in households where there is only one person registered. Among families made up of only foreigners, 17.2% are compound: they live with other persons who may or may not be related, but do not in any way form a couple or have paternal-filial relations; for the whole of the family census, this type of family represents 3.4%. 12.1% of the families have a nucleus made up of spouses or common law couples, with or without children, fathers or mothers with children and other persons, relatives or not –extended families-.

The average size of foreign families is smaller than the average for the whole of Basque families

The average size of families made up of only foreigners is below the average for the whole of Basque families: 2.36 compared with 2.76 for the latter. Families made up of foreigners and non foreigners have 3.65 members on average, which indicates a probable weight of mixed marriages and/or children already with Spanish nationality. The lower average for families made up only of foreigners may be explained either by the low age of this population or because they may have left part of their family behind in their places of origin, a circumstance which may lead to processes of family reunification in the future.

Of the 31,167 foreigners in the 2001 census, the nationality of 45.7% corresponds to one of the American countries, 31% are from Europe, 18.4% from Africa, 4.7% from Asia, 0.2% from Oceania. With regard to sex, 62% of those with American nationality are females, while in the case of Africans the trend is reversed and 67% of the latter are males.

On average foreigners are aged 32.5, nine years younger than the rest of the population.

50% of foreigners are concentrated in the three capitals; specifically, 23.6% choose to live in Bilbao, 17% in Vitoria-Gasteiz and 10% in Donostia-San Sebastián. 54.3% of this group aged 16 or over are employed and 12.9% are jobless. This figure represents an unemployment rate of 19%, compared to 11.6% for the whole of the population in 2001. Only 32.8% are inactive; 14% work in housework, 9% are studying and the rest are in another situation of inactivity (retired, unable to work, etc.). The percentage of inactive persons in the whole of the A.C. of the Basque Country is 53.1% of the population.