2026-2029 More industrial than once thought. Manufactures in 18th century Spain. Financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Proyectos de Generación de Conocimiento, Investigación No Orientada B (PID2025-171078NB-I00). Principal investigator: Carmen Sarasúa
This new project intends to a) measure and b) explain the transformation of the occupational structure in the 18th century—what factors favored this transformation and what factors slowed it down. Our previous work with historical cartography specialists showed that a necessary first step is to locate industrial activity. We will analyze what variables correlate with industrial activity (energy supply, labor supply, access to transportation networks, access to urban centers), which could explain competitive cost structures that would have compensated for scarce capital; and the extent to which measures like trade policy and infrastructure policy were also determinative. At the same time, the unequal distribution of industry helps explain other territorial imbalances—population, wealth, infrastructures, services, and political weight—which negatively affected those regions with less industrial activity. We focus on the manufacturing sector, locating and describing industrial activity in all of its forms. To locate industrial activity we will convert our databases to maps. Following the Cambridge Group’s advances in industrial cartography, our project will constitute a qualitative and innovative leap forward in terms of sources, volume of data, and results. Situating manufacturing production across Spain for the entire 18th century will allow us to evaluate the impact of physical conditions; detect groupings, specializations, and patterns of diffusion; and compare territories. Our research confirms that in fact a large portion of manufactures took place outside of cities—in rural households and workshops attached to employers’ homes or within workers’ own homes. To ignore such domestic manufacturing—or to group it with production for household consumption—affects our understanding of women and children’s work. This also means that the rural economy cannot simply be identified with agricultural production, and that rural populations cannot simply be identified with agrarian employment. The main outcome of the Project will be the Atlas de las manufacturas en la España pre-industrial. Together with the series of journal articles planned focusing on regional and sectoral analysis, it will make a fundamental contribution to our knowledge of the roots of the modern economy and labor markets.
2022-2025 The long-term transformation of the occupational structure, Spain 1700-1920. Non-agricultural occupations as a proxy for economic modernization. Financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Proyectos de Generación de Conocimiento, Investigación No Orientada (PID2021-123863NB-C21). Investigadora principal. In preceding projects, we have explored women’s participation rates and wages and those wages contribution to family economies over the long term (1700-1975) in Spain. Furthermore, we have shown that women and men’s occupational structures had important differences. As could already be inferred from empirical, local studies for other European countries, Spanish women were overwhelmingly occupied in manufactures and services, while men were concentrated in the primary sector. In this project we will take an important step in our analysis by looking systematically at the causes for the evolution of Spain’s occupational structure. Our main theoretical and methodological principles include the following:
- Occupational structure is as relevant an indicator of economic and social modernization as GDP structure. We study structural change—the gradual loss of agricultural employment and the parallel growth of non-agricultural employment—to understand when and where such modernization took place.
- Sectoral analysis of employment must include women, not only because they composed half of the labor force but also because they were concentrated in different sectors than were men; therefore, excluding them creates a distorted view of occupational structure (Sarasúa 2019). Rebutting a traditional argument, we have demonstrated that sources documenting women’s work in pre-census periods do in fact exist.
- We center our research in the preindustrial era, to find out where and how the Spanish population was working during the “long 18th century”, which ended approximately in 1820 with war and the resulting economic, social, and political turmoil.
2018-2021 La estructura de la ocupación y el ingreso en el largo plazo. Redefiniendo la modernización económica y los niveles de vida en España, 1750-1975. Financiado por el Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (HAR2017-85601-C2- 1-P). Investigadora principal. La visión tradicional de la modernización económica, basada en el concepto de cambio estructural en el PIB y el empleo (Kuznets) afirma que la población ocupada en actividades no agrarias empieza a crecer como resultado de la Industrialización. En el caso español, su atraso industrial vendría reflejado no sólo por el PIB no agrario sino precisamente por el empleo no agrario, que cae por debajo del 50 por ciento de la población ocupada total solo en 1920. Esta interpretación se explica porque las fuentes en las que se basan (los censos de población desde 1877) excluyen la mayor parte del trabajo de las mujeres. Incorporar el trabajo de las mujeres no significa sólo aumentar la población activa total sino cambiar nuestra visión del peso relativo de los sectores económicos, puesto que las mujeres se concentraban en ocupaciones no agrarias: manufacturas (sobre todo textiles) y servicios (sobre todo servicio doméstico). Este Proyecto parte de este debate internacional para analizar el caso de España. Nos proponemos (1) reconstruir las ocupaciones de la población española antes, durante y después de la Industrialización, especialmente las de mujeres, niñas y niños; (2) codificar con el sistema PSTI nuestras bases de datos (nominativas), que permiten cruzar las ocupaciones con indicadores demográficos, salariales y educativos, lo que permitirá la comparación internacional; (3) estudiar el peso de las manufacturas textiles dispersas, y en qué medida la población ocupada en empleos no agrícolas era superior en el XVIII que en el XIX; (4) profundizar en el estudio de los salarios pasando del salario individual al ingreso familiar como variable más idónea para identificar las tendencias de desigualdad y pobreza; (5) construir series de salarios nominales de una ocupación femenina, las nodrizas de establecimientos de expósitos, que no presenta los problemas metodológicos que lastran los estudios sobre salarios, fundamentalmente diferencias en tiempo de trabajo y productividad; (6) estudiar la pluriactividad, y en especial las migraciones estacionales y temporales, que contribuyendo de forma decisiva a la renta familiar son mucho peor conocidas que las emigraciones definitivas.
2013-2017 Salarios, actividad de las mujeres y niveles de vida, 1750-1950. Financiado por Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (HAR2013-47277-C2-1-P), Investigadora principal.
2010-2012 La reconstrucción de la tasa de actividad femenina española, 1750-1980. Financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (HAR2009-11709), Investigadora Principal.
2010-2011 Reconstrucción de la actividad femenina en los territorios de la Corona de Aragón, 1716-1816. Financiado por el Institut Català de les Dones (U-35/10), Investigador principal.
2010 Reconstructing the Female Labor Force Participation Rate in Western Europe, 18th and 19th centuries (Exploratory Workshop). Financiado por la European Science Foundation (Standing Committee for Social Sciences SCSS). Convenor: Carmen Sarasúa. Co-convenor: Jane Humphries (Oxford U.)
2009-2012 UHE. Economic Institutions, Living Standards, Environment. Grupo de Investigación (SGR 962). Financiado por AGAUR. Investigadora principal.
2005-2010 Gender and Well-being: Interactions between Work, Family and Public Policies (COST-A34). Financiado por el European Science Foundation (ESF) y European Cooperation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST), Investigadora Principal: Cristina Borderías (UB).
2003-2006 Women's work and union participation during Franco's dictatorship (1940-1980). Financiado por el Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales, Instituto de la Mujer. Investigadora principal. +
2001-2004 The socio-economic role of domestic service as a factor in European identity. Financiado por la European Comission, dirigido por A. Fauve-Chamoux (EHESS, París).
2001-2003 Tensions of Europe: Technology and the making of 20th Century Europe. Financiado por la European Science Foundation. Dirigido por Johan Schot (Eindhoven University of Technology).
1993-1995 Gender and the construction of working time. Financiado por la European Comission, DG VII, dirigido por Olwen Hufton y Yota Kravaritou (European University Institute).