Exploring Changes in Earnings Inequality during Industrialization: Barcelona, 1856-1905

Abstract

This paper provides estimates of wage dispersion in nineteenth-century Barcelona and documents the compression of the pay distribution between 1856 and 1905. A decomposition of inequality changes by sector and gender leads to two conclusions. First, that most of the changes occurred within each industry, of which the textile industry stands out; and second, that although traditional analyses of changes in earnings inequality tend to ignore female labour and earnings arising from piecework, these seem to be, together with the new factory discipline, the key factors in explaining shifts in earnings inequality in industrializing societies.