vida laboral - History Lab

Seasonality of work by sex. S’Estorell, 1658-1673

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:48 +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 Almandrá valley up to the first peaks of the mountain range in the villages of Alaró and Selva. The work roles assigned to men and women could be broken when the concurrence of different work demands for different tasks in the same season demanded it. From September to January, female and child labour was absorbed in its entirety by the carob harvest (September) and later for the olive harvest (October-January). Once the olive season was over, women joined in January or February the spring weeding for cereals, generally in April and May. On the other hand, the men’s work began in August with the clearing of the olive groves (August-October) and continued from November to January with the digging of the olive trees, which was interspersed with the digging of the wheat fields. In February they began pruning the olive trees (February-April) and then grafting the olive trees (May). In summer, the demand for agricultural labour was concentrated on harvesting, although some labour was also assigned to forestry activities such as charcoal production. Seasonality was, however, a notable anomaly. Around 44% of the working days were contributed by labourers and 56% by day labourers. Female labour accounted for 75% of the working days, male labourers for 17% and child labour was absent, at least in the account books.

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Office of the owners of transhumant livestock in La Rioja (18th century)

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:29:07 +0000

Transhumance has been a very relevant activity in the Spanish rural environment in pre-industrial times. Nowadays, knowledge about the work of shepherds is scarce due to a lack of documentation, as the phenomenon of pluriactivity must be taken into account. Had this not existed in the Rioja sierras – mainly through textile activity – the labour relations between stockbreeders and shepherds would have been very different. In socio-economic terms, it is understood that shepherds enjoyed transhumance in three ways: as owners, wage earners and enjoying exemptions granted by the monarchy (free of council offices, quintas and levies). However, it is necessary to clarify which type of shepherds we are referring to, as the hierarchies are not comparable in any field. The “mayorales” included management capacity and initiative, knowledge of the environment, administrators of goods and proxies for the herdsmen. As far as livestock owners were concerned, the ownership of livestock was the least evenly distributed of all. While two thirds of the inhabitants owned land and three quarters of them owned some kind of livestock, the owners of transhumant sheep accounted for only 27% of the inhabitants, being the most exclusive and concentrated asset in the hands of large livestock farmers and shepherds. The table shows the distribution of the flocks in various socio-professional groups. The stockbreeders, who were a handful of neighbours, accumulated 86% of the cattle; the shepherds, almost two thirds of the owners, owned 10% of the cattle in herds of less than 100 head. The rest, which did not exceed 20%, absorbed 3.2% of the livestock.

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Number of people and days of work contracted in S’Estorell, between 1658-1659 and 1672-1673.

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. For the exploitation of the estate, a fixed and daily labour force was hired, where the choice of workers was in the hands of the owner and the administrator, who relied on information provided by people they trusted in the nearby villages. This type of agreement was made through women who organised the gangs in the villages, while for the different tasks, contracts were made through the intermediary of foremen. Other matters, such as harvesting contracts, were offered to the highest bidder in the town square. On average, 29 labourers were hired each year, working 148 days: this accounted for 22% of the people hired and 40% of the working days. These labourers carried out a wide variety of tasks: ploughing fields, working in vineyards and orchards, making oil and tending livestock.

The post Number of people and days of work contracted in S’Estorell, between 1658-1659 and 1672-1673. first appeared on History Lab.

Contractual modalities of the labour force in 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 Almandrá valley up to the first peaks of the mountain range in the villages of Alaró and Selva. The labour contracts for day labourers took on different modalities according to technical and social considerations through different contractual modalities: piecework, daily contracts or day labour. The daily wage contract was clearly the dominant type of contract for all work: 81% of expenditure and 88% of working days were spent on skilled work (grafting olives or pruning vines) or unskilled work (olive picking, digging, etc.). Monthly contracting represented 3.4% of expenditure and 3.9% of total wages. This modality consisted of giving a team of labourers the task of digging or digging for a few months, whose salary was equivalent to that of a farm labourer (35-40 salaries per month). However, the account books do not specify whether they were provided with food. On the other hand, piece-rate contracts represented 15.7% of the expenditure and 6.3% of the number of working days, where women are rarely hired in this modality: 0.1% in terms of expenditure and number of working days. Finally, daily contracts were predominant, while piecework contracts accounted for a small proportion of the number of persons and wages contracted.

The post Contractual modalities of the labour force in S’Estorell, 1658-1673, 1674-1675 and 1677-1680 first appeared on History Lab.

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.

Wage ratios between labourers and the gender gap in the estates of S’Estorell and Son Costa (1658-1680)

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

In recent years, there has been an extensive historiographical debate on women’s participation in rural professional markets and on the wage gap between men and women before 1800. At the same time, there is also no consensus on the wage share of farm household income. However, wage studies have shown that women were paid significantly less than men for the same work. This gap persisted throughout the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, although it narrowed moderately during periods of intense labour demand. 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. In the mid-17th century, on the Safortesa estate, salaries were paid in cash, in current money or in kind when they were of a mixed nature. In some years, wages were paid in kind, in wheat at the request of the labourers. Payments for extra work were recorded separately from the agreed wage. On the other hand, the tasks of grafting and pruning were considered the most skilled, as both were paid with a mixed wage consisting of a monetary wage and a supplement in kind called companatge (condumio), consisting of a casserole with vegetables, accompanied by salted fish or cheese, wine, oil and bread. The master was paid 6-8 salaries a day, depending on the type of tree; his assistants received 4 salaries a day. The cost of companatge was 1.5 sueldos/day in the above-mentioned years. In the middle years of the 17th century, pruning was not as important as it became in later periods, when the olive trees were mature and their yield depended on more energetic pruning. The wage in this case was 51% lower than for grafting and 29-39% higher than for digging the roots. However, the range of women’s wages was narrower: seasonal workers received a mixed monthly wage, part in money and part in oil, plus other supplements such as accommodation, firewood, water and transport to and from their residence to the farm. The wage for picking olives was 20% higher than the one for digging in the pedios. In short, the wage gap for similar work (digging cereals) in the highlands and plains was still very high, with women’s wages representing less than 40% of men’s, figures very similar to those of the mid-16th century.

The post Wage ratios between labourers and the gender gap in the estates of S’Estorell and Son Costa (1658-1680) first appeared on History Lab.

Working life of the transhumant shepherds of La Rioja (Viniegra de Abajo, ca. 1740-1800).

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

Transhumance was a very important activity in the Spanish countryside in pre-industrial times. Nowadays, knowledge about the work of shepherds is scarce due to a lack of documentation, as the phenomenon of pluriactivity must be taken into account. Had this not existed in the Rioja sierras – mainly through textile activity – the labour relations between stockbreeders and shepherds would have been very different. In socio-economic terms, it is understood that shepherds enjoyed transhumance in three ways: as owners, wage earners and enjoying exemptions granted by the monarchy (free of council offices, quintas and levies). However, it is necessary to clarify which type of shepherds we are referring to, as the hierarchies are not comparable in any field. The majorales encompassed management capacity and initiative, knowledge of the environment, administrators of goods and proxies for the herdsmen. Moreover, the mayoral contracts required a power of attorney that enabled them to make decisions on the spot. However, the transhumant shepherds in La Rioja numbered around 2,150, at a rate of five for every thousand people. Of the total number of inhabitants in the La Demanda and Cameros mountain ranges, they accounted for around 30%. These shepherds had an average grazing period of 5.4 years, with 68.3% of those who worked in transhumance for less than five years, which does not allow them to be identified as shepherds. Even less with the 39 who did it for less than one year of service, people who were dismissed or expelled before the time of the first contract was up. In this sense, the herds suffered a significant labour turnover where the labour market of the transhumant herds was a particularly open environment where labour came and went very easily.

The post Working life of the transhumant shepherds of La Rioja (Viniegra de Abajo, ca. 1740-1800). first appeared on History Lab.