Simpson, James

English

Research Papers in Economics

321
José Miguel Martínez Carrión (ed), El Nivel de Vida en la España
Rural, Siglos XVIII-XX. Salamanca: Universidad de Alicante, 2002. Pp. 724,
maps. ISBN: 84 7908 668 8. Hardcover 30 euros.
Over the last decade historians have shown that Spanish agriculture experienced
considerable changes in the century or so prior to the 1936/9 Civil War, the
Book reviews
© Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2003322
period which, despite its title, this book is concerned with. By the 1930s the farm
population was falling rapidly, mechanisation and irrigation spreading to new
areas, and productivity increasing. One of the interests of this book, as the editor
notes, is therefore to see the impact of these changes on living standards, and
whether rural inequality increased or decreased over the period.
The book is centred around four major themes: changes in real wages; con-
sumption and household survival strategies; stature and infant mortality; and edu-
cation and child labour. It concludes with a 50-page appendix of wage series for
different regions between 1700 and 1936. Among the 12 chapters, there are a
number of ﬁne essays, but most suffer from being too long. Another limitation is
that too few of the authors have reﬂected, or perhaps even read, the other con-
tributions, despite the book originating from a congress. Certainly the editor has
tried to pull together the various themes, but readers are required to do consid-
erable work themselves to obtain an overall picture of change.
All the authors are able to show improvements in living standards, especially
for the early twentieth century. For example, real wages increased by ﬁfty per cent
from about 1850–1930 in Navarra (pp. 231–2), mortality for children under ten
years in central Spain halved to just over 200 per 1000 (p. 403), and the height
of rural recruits in south-east Spain increased from about 160 cm to 165 cm (p.
427). Yet more interesting is what the authors have to say about distribution
between the different groups of rural society, and the cyclical changes over time.
Thus the three variables just mentioned all suggest a worsening of living condi-
tions between about 1840 and 1870, before improvements began during the
‘agrarian crisis’ of the late nineteenth century. This point could have been
pursued in greater depth, as there are few references either to changes in land-
to-labour ratios, or their consequences for living standards. Indeed, several
authors appear to automatically equate a rise in land rents with falling living stan-
dards for farmers, despite the growing opportunities provided by urban markets.
Tables by Lana for Navarra, and Domínguez for northern Spain suggest that the
signiﬁcant increase in land ownership reﬂects improved living standards, as much
as changes in real wages.
Despite the shortcomings, this book is likely to be required reading for those
interested in long-run changes in living standards in Spain and southern Europe.
With one exception, there are no weak essays, and all have involved long hours
of archival research. The authors are also fully aware of the limitations of the
statistical indices they are using. Furthermore a good coverage of rural Spain has
been achieved, with the exception of the jornaleros in the southern latifundios.A
careful, but heavy pruning of the papers, and a greater attempt by most of the
authors to relate their results to other contributions in the book, might produce
a volume which would deserve translating into English for a wider audience.
James Simpson
Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla
Book reviews
© Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd and the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand 2003

El nivel de vida en la España rural, siglos XVIII-XX.

http://e-archivo.uc3m.es/bitstream/10016/11236/1/nivel_simpson_AEHR_2003.pdf

El nivel de vida en la España rural, siglos XVIII-XX.

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