jornalero - History Lab

Socio-professional distribution by heads of household according to age groups. Lorca, 1797

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:41 +0000

With this resource, the authors highlight the social mobility of the peasantry at the end of the Ancien Régime in the municipality of Lorca (Murcia). The relationship between day labourers, tenant farmers and tenant farmers shows a decrease in the number of day labourers over the course of their life cycle, while the group of farm labourers remains stable. The change of occupation among day labourers, who account for more than 50% of the heads of household aged between 20 and 25, becomes more pronounced from the age of 50 onwards.

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Distribution by head of household of day labourers without property according to age group. Lorca, 1797

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:41 +0000

Social mobility within the group of day labourers without property is determined by the moment in the life cycle in which they find themselves and by the space in which the day labourer’s activity is carried out. The graph shows that in the city the level of social mobility is lower than in the countryside and, above all, than in the huerta. The municipality of Lorca (Murcia) is at an intermediate level due to its characteristics as an agro-city. In short, neighbourhood relations, familiarity, solidarity and proximity are closely related to this phenomenon, which is also linked to the economic conditions of the areas of activity.

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Distribution of day labourers by work and sex. S’Estorell, 1658-1673, 1674-1675 and 1677-1680

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:02 +0000

The demand for agricultural wage labour was highly seasonal, limiting the possibilities of converting it into a regular source of income. The development of agrarian capitalism contributed to this, which led to a productive specialisation in which the participation of women was lower than in the manufacturing and service sectors. The S’Estorell estate was located in the parish of Binissalem, at the foot of the Tramontana mountain range, and was the largest estate in the municipality and one of the ten most profitable on the island, with a valuation of 52,000 pounds according to the land registry of 1685. It covered 520 hectares, occupying the valley of Almandrá up to the first peaks of the mountain range in the villages of Alaró and Selva. The olive grove absorbed practically 90% of the daily wage labour, followed at a great distance by the cultivation of cereals (6.8%) and work in orchards or vineyards (1.8%). These tasks were carried out 69.8% by women, 20.5% by adult men and 9.75% by children. In this sense, the feminisation of day labour was very high, although unevenly distributed between tasks and crops. Female and child labour was almost entirely devoted to olive and carob harvesting, with hardly any participation in soil maintenance work. The male labour force, however, was hired for the more specialised work in the canopy of the olive groves and to plough carob trees, but also for unskilled work in the olive groves, such as weeding. In the harvest, however, female workers accounted for half of the workforce, although in a smaller proportion in terms of the number of days worked (44%).

The post Distribution of day labourers by work and sex. S’Estorell, 1658-1673, 1674-1675 and 1677-1680 first appeared on History Lab.