[8] Migrants largely consist of men; according to Spain's Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE), only 13% are women.
[12][13] Common areas of employment among the Pakistanis in Barcelona include in agriculture, as skilled tradespersons such as mechanics, carpenters, or welders, and in construction.
[17] Punjabi is the most common first language among Pakistanis in Spain, reported by 63.6% of one survey group in Barcelona.
[4] Islam is by far the most common religion among Pakistanis in Spain, and serves as an important marker of community belonging.
It is named for Tariq ibn Ziyad, the general who led the Muslim conquest of Spain beginning in 711, and belongs to the Tablighi Jamaat movement.
That year, the government passed amnesty laws which would enable foreigners residing in Spain illegally to regularise their status; however, as a result of being unable to meet the requirements, a group of about a hundred, among them many Pakistanis, barricaded themselves in two churches in Barcelona and declared a hunger strike, which would last from 20 January to 8 March 2000 and would attract an additional seven hundred protestors during that time.