Economic development, female wages and missing female births in Spain, 1900-1930

Echávarri Aguinaga, Rebeca; Beltrán Tapia, Francisco J.

Publication:
Economic development, female wages and missing female births in Spain, 1900-1930

dc.contributor.author	Echávarri Aguinaga, Rebeca
dc.contributor.author	Beltrán Tapia, Francisco J.
dc.contributor.department	Economía	es_ES
dc.contributor.department	Ekonomia	eu
dc.contributor.department	Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE	en
dc.contributor.funder	Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa	es
dc.date.accessioned	2023-08-23T18:15:45Z
dc.date.available	2023-08-23T18:15:45Z
dc.date.issued	2023
dc.date.updated	2023-08-23T18:08:48Z
dc.description.abstract	Focusing on Spain between 1900 and 1930, a period characterised by significant structural transformations and rapid economic growth, this article shows that the sex ratio at birth (SRB) was abnormally high, at least until the 1920s. Apart from questioning whether female under-registration and different mortality environments alone can explain the results reported here, our analysis of regional information indicates that SRBs were higher in provinces where the economic structure was dominated by agriculture and manufacturing (relative to the service sector). In addition, exploiting the annual variation in low-skilled wages at the province level makes it possible to distinguish between the roles played by under-registration and outright neglect: while higher wages could increase the opportunity cost of registering a female birth (and therefore result in higher SRBs), they could also reduce the pressure to neglect female babies (and therefore result in lower SRBs). We find evidence of both effects (income and opportunity cost) of wages on SRBs between 1914 and 1920 in Spain, a period in which WWI arguably subjected the Spanish economy to an exogenous demand shock. These two effects, however, imply very different discriminatory practices. In fact, on average, the income effect was larger than the effect arising from the opportunity cost, which supports the idea that female neglect around birth was more prevalent than previously assumed during the early twentieth century in Spain. As expected, the relationship between wages and the SRB vanished during the 1920s, along with the unbalanced SRB. These results stress that gender discrimination around birth does not necessarily disappear with economic growth unless this process is accompanied by expanded labour opportunities for women.	en
dc.description.sponsorship	Open Access funding provided by Universidad Pública de Navarra. Rebeca Echavarri also acknowledges financial support from the grant PID2020-115183RB-C21 & PID2021-127119NB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI//10.13039/501100 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe”. Francisco Beltran Tapia acknowledges financial support from the Research Council of Norway (Project 301527).	en
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.identifier.citation	Echavarri, R., Beltrán Tapia, F. J. (2023) Economic development, female wages and missing female births in Spain, 1900-1930. Cliometrica, 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11698-023-00267-y.	en
dc.identifier.doi	10.1007/s11698-023-00267-y
dc.identifier.issn	1863-2505
dc.identifier.uri	https://academica-e.unavarra.es/handle/2454/45999
dc.language.iso	eng	en
dc.publisher	Springer	en
dc.relation.ispartof	Cliometrica, 2023	en
dc.relation.projectID	info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/AEI/Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2017-2020/PID2020-115183RB-C21/ES/	en
dc.relation.projectID	info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/AEI/Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2021-2023/PID2021-127119NB-I00	en
dc.relation.publisherversion	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11698-023-00267-y
dc.rights	© 2023, The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.	en
dc.rights.accessRights	Acceso abierto / Sarbide irekia	es
dc.rights.accessRights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess	en
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subject	Gender discrimination	en
dc.subject	Industrialisation	en
dc.subject	Sex ratio at birth	en
dc.title	Economic development, female wages and missing female births in Spain, 1900-1930	en
dc.type	info:eu-repo/semantics/article
dc.type.version	Versión publicada / Argitaratu den bertsioa	es
dc.type.version	info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion	en
dspace.entity.type	Publication
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