Women in the Rural and Industrial Labor Force in Nineteenth-Century Spain

Abstract

This contribution analyzes determinants of women's labor force participation (LFP) in northwest coastal Spain (Galicia) in the second half of the nineteenth century. The study uses census takers' notebooks from 1857 and 1870 in three municipalities with different economic structures: Nigrán, an agricultural municipality in southern Galicia on the estuary of Vigo, where women predominantly worked in agriculture; Bueu, an industrial town where 80 percent of women were employed in fish processing and related activities; and Coruña, Galicia's biggest city in 1857, where commerce and services were the main economic activities. The sample represents 2 percent of the region's population. The study focuses both on demand – how the local economic structure influenced the entrance of women into the labor market; and supply – how age, civil status, and number of children influenced women's LFP. The industrialization of coastal Galicia impelled women's high participation rates.

KEYWORDS:

• Women's labor force participation
• women's work
• labor markets
• employment
• J21
• J23
• D13

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study has been financed by the following research projects: “Reconstrucción de la tasa de actividad femenina española, 1750–1980,” Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación de España (HAR2009–11709), coordinated by Carmen Sarasúa (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), and Programa INCITE, Xunta de Galicia (10SEC210031PR). Thanks to Carmen Sarasúa for discussion and comments. Thanks also to the participants at X International Congress AEHE at Pablo Olavide University in Carmona (Panel 9, September 2011). All errors are, of course, my own.

Notes

“Con las cédulas de inscripción individual habían de formarse padrones de pueblos, con estos, resúmenes de partido judicial, y con estos, resúmenes provinciales” [Along with individual inscriptions, nominal population censuses would be created for municipalities, counties, and provinces] (author's translation; Comisión de Estadística General del Reino 1858).

The 1851 Census of England and Wales directed enumerators to list dependents as working if they helped in a family enterprise, but many enumerators ignored the instructions (Edward Higgs 1995, 1996). Many women who clearly worked in agriculture were recorded in the census as having no occupation (Nancy Folbre 1991; Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries 1995; Nicola Verdon 2002). In France, censuses undercounted workers, mostly in agriculture (George Grantham 2012).

I gathered this information from the census takers' notebooks in 1857 for the municipalities of Nigrán and Coruña (AMC 1857; AMN 1857). For Bueu, specifically for the labor activity rates for children and the elderly, I used data from Luisa Muñoz Abeledo (2010).

According to the National Census of 1860, Pontevedra county includes Bueu, Coruña includes the city of Coruña, and Vigo includes Nigrán (Comisión de Estadística General del Reino 1860).

In the French Enquête Agricole of 1852, the census takers categorized a landowning farmer as propiétaire-cultivateur or some similar designation (George Grantham and Franque Grimard 2010). Notebooks from the 1857 census in Nigrán show that men made up 55.6 percent, and women 44.4 percent, of the total landowners (twenty-seven people; AMN 1857).

A 1998 interview of a women working as a fish auctioneer in Bueu shows the family roots of her occupation: “My grandma Concepción and my aunt María were the only fish auctioneer women of Bueu. My great-grandmother Juliana was a fish-seller at the end of the ninetieth century. My grandma worked in the former fish public market since the beginning of the twentieth century until she was 69 years old. I remember my grandfather coming to her office here close to the public market to help her with the accounting. Then, there were two men doing this job. When boats arrived in the harbor, they decided who would be the one to sell their fish. My grandma was very good because she managed a lot of boat sales. My aunt managed to increase the number of participating fishermen, and I also kept these clients and brought them into the fishermen's association of Bueu” (Luisa Muñoz Abeledo 2003: 270).

For relevant, contemporary Spanish history, see Lina Gálvez-Muñoz and Paloma Fernández (2007). For related English history, see Janet Rutterford and Josephine Maltby (2006), among others.

For instance, Jaume Bolivar Borrel willed everything to his wife and children. He gave one-fifth of his property to his wife and to his three children – Jaume, Adelaida, and Teresa – including money, public debt, shares of two railroad companies, houses, salting factories, boats, fishing gear, livestock, and furniture (Protocolos Notariales. Libro 17584 1886: 107).

For more on domestic service, see Jesús Mirás Araujo (2005) on Coruña; Hermina Pernas Oroza (2001) on Santiago; Isidro Dubert (1999) on Galicia; and Carmen Sarasúa (1994) on Madrid.

For instance, Liv Toril Pettersen (1996) points out that on Lofoten Island in Norway, women performed a number of tasks including repairing nets, cleaning boats, and preparing the crews' meals. In British Columbia, Canada, women performed support roles in fishing (Carol Cooper 1992; Dianne Newell 1993).

For information on Spanish marriage systems, see Robert Rowland (1988).