Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T20:57:19.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Female Entrepreneurship in Spain during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Lina Glvez Muoz
Affiliation:
LINA GLVEZ MUOZ is assistant professor at the Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Seville.
Paloma Fernndez Prez
Affiliation:
PALOMA FERNNDEZ PREZ is assistant professor at the Universitat de Barcelona.
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Structural changes during the past two centuries shaped Spanish women's economic activity in firms, family businesses, and self-employment, reflecting women's adaptation to a social system that assigned gender-specific roles and rights. In response to the discriminatory effects of labor segregation, Spain's female workers specialized in the service-sector jobs that were available to them. Until the twentieth century, Spanish women's business initiatives in this sector were mainly in domestic service, retail distribution, and social services. During the 1900s, the cumulative impact of rapid industrialization, the growth of service industries, legal reform, and the shift to a democratic system in Spain during the 1970s paved the way for women to enter public and private firms as professionals. As a result, more women became self-employed or helped to run family businesses related to tourism, the hotel and restaurant industries, design, fashion, and the arts.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2007

References

1 Kwolek-Folland, Angel, Incorporating Women: A History of Women and Business in the United States (New York, 1998)Google Scholar.

2 For a labor-management perspective, see Borderas, Cristina, Entre Lneas: Trabajo e Identidad Femenina en la Espaa Contempornea: La Compaa Telefnica Nacional de Espaa, 1924-1980 (Barcelona, 1993)Google Scholar; Muoz, Lina Glvez, Compaa Arrendataria de Tabacos, 1887-1945: Cambio tecnolgico y empleo femenino (Madrid, 2000)Google Scholar; and the contributions to Privilegios o Eficiencia? Mujeres y Hombres en los Mercados de Trabajo, eds. Sarasa, Carmen and Muoz, Lina Glvez (Alicante, 2003).Google Scholar For a family business approach, see Perz, Paloma Fernndez, El rostro familiar de la metropolis: Redes de parentesco y lazos mercantiles en Cdiz, 1700-1812 (Madrid, 1997)Google Scholar. From a women's history perspective, see Angels Sola, Las mujeres y sus negocios en el medio urbano, unpublished paper, Conference on Women's History, Facultat d'Histria, Universitat de Barcelona, 2007. For a theoretical approach, see Muoz, Lina Glvez, Logros y retos del anlisis de gnero en la historia econmica de la empresa, Informacin Comercial Espaola 812 (2004): 7789Google Scholar.

3 Janssens, Angelique, The Rise and Decline of the Male Breadwinner Family, International Journal of Social History 17 (Dec. 1997): suppl. 5.Google Scholar

4 Carreras, Albert and Tafunell, Xavier, Spain: Big Manufacturing Firms between State and Market, 1917-1990, in Big Business and the Wealth of Nations, eds. Chandler, Alfred D. Jr, Amatori, Franco, and Hikino, Takeshi (Cambridge, Mass., 1997), 277304CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the relation between firm size and management style, see Guilln, Mauro, Models of Management: Work, Authority and Organization in a Comparative Perspective (Chicago, 1994)Google Scholar; for the Spanish case, Lina Glvez Muoz, Contamos Trabajadores o Contamos con los Trabajadores: Trabajo y Empresa en la Espaa Contempornea, in Los Novsimos en la Historia Econmica en Espaa, a special edition of the Revista de Historia Econmica (2001): 201-27.

5 See Colli, Andrea, Perz, Paloma Fernndez, and Rose, Mary B., National Determinants of Family Firm Development? Family Firms in Britain, Spain and Italy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Enterprise & Society 4 (2003): 4, 28-64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Rentiers were considered an economically active population, even though they were not engaged in productive work, whereas women active in their family businesses or on their family farms were not usually considered to be economically active. See the works published in Sarasa, Carmen and Muoz, Lina Glvez, eds., Privilegios o Eficiencia? Mujeres y Hombres en los Mercados de Trabajo (Alicante, 2003)Google Scholar. Also see references in Bustillo, Josefina Cuesta, ed., Historia de las mujeres en Espaa: Siglo XX, 4 vols. (Madrid, 2003), 1: 18996Google Scholar.

7 EAP is a panel of data compiled in all OECD countries. It is more accurate than the census data, since it is designed to analyze the labor market rather than to compile a demographic record.

8 The evolutionary approach in economics is a theoretical one that takes into account previous accumulated resources for analyzing firms behavior.

9 From medieval through modern times, many women helped to run the family workshop or commercial house, despite the fact that commercial laws forbade women to engage in such activity. The laws remained in effect for centuries, even after changes had occurred in women's economic behavior.

10 Nuez, Clara Eugenia, La Fuente de la Riqueza: Educatin y desarrollo econmico en la Espaa Contempornea (Madrid, 1992), 132Google Scholar.

11 The Escuela de Institutrices and the Escuela de Comercio para Seoras were born in response to a strong impetus from the Asociacin para la Enseanza de la Mujer (1871). In 1909 coeducation in Spanish primary schools became a universal and compulsory requirement for all girls and boys under the age of twelve. The first Spanish women's institutes for secondary education were created in 1929.

12 Albear, Natividad Ortiz, Las mujeres durante la Restauracin, in Historia de las mujeres en Espaa, 1: 242Google Scholar.

13 Gender differences and female exclusion were more evident in technical schools during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. See Joaquim Cuevas and Lina Glvez Muoz, Technical Education, Institutional Change and Regional Development in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Spain, proceedings of the European Business Historians Association conference, Oslo, 2001.

14 Sarasa, Carmen, Aprendiendo a ser mujeres: las escuelas de nias en la Espaa del siglo XIX, Cuadernos de Historia Contempornea 24 (2002): 28197Google Scholar. An exception to this segregated educational system were the Anarchist schools that were founded all over Spain during the first third of twentieth century.

15 Blau, Francine, Simpson, Patricia, and Anderson, Deborah, Continuing Progress? Trends in Occupational Segregation in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, Feminist Economics 4 (1998): 2971CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 From the Official Spanish Register of Patents and Trademarks (Oficina Espaola de Patentes y Marcas). We acknowledge Patricio Sainz and Francisco Cayn for providing these unpublished data.

17 Herr, Richard, An Historical Essay on Modern Spain (Berkeley, Calif., 1971)Google Scholar. See also Payne, Stanley G., A History of Spain and Portugal (Madison, Wise, 1973)Google Scholar. In Spanish, see the recent textbook by Carreras, Albert and Tafunell, Xavier, Historia Econmica de Espaa (Barcelona, 2004)Google Scholar.

18 One of the latest examples of this debate was published by Gabriel Tortella in the newspaper La Vanguardia, 4 July 2004, in which he reiterated his belief in the scarcity of male entrepreneurs, an argument he first put forth in the late 1990s.

19 North, Douglass C., Institutions, Transaction Costs, and the Rise of Merchant Empires, in The Rise of Merchant Empires, ed. Tracy, J. D. (New York, 1991)Google Scholar. See also several essays in the special issue on institutions published by the Scandinavian Economic History Review 47, no. 1 (1999)Google Scholar.

20 Casey, James et al., La familia en la Espaa mediterrnea (siglos XV-XIX) (Barcelona, 1987)Google Scholar; and Reher, David S., La familia en Espaa (Madrid, 1998)Google Scholar.

21 See Fernndez Perz, El rostro familiar de la metrpolis; and Perz, Paloma Fernndez, El declinar del patriarcalismo en Espaa: Estado y familia en la transicin del Antiguo Rgimen a la Edad Contempornea, in Familia, Parentesco y Linaje, eds. Casey, James and Franco, Juan Hernndez (Murcia, 1997), 379403Google Scholar.

22 Cdigo Civil (Madrid, 1889)Google Scholar. For an analysis of the implications of this legal trajectory, see Bustillo, Cuesta, Historia de las mujeres en Espaa, 1: 21719Google Scholar. On the 1958 and 1975 legal changes, see 2: 211-12.

23 Until the appearance of the royal order dated 2 Sept. 1910, women with academic titles could not join professions that were under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. The Ley de Bases of 22 July 1918, in its treatment of civil servants, limited women's jobs to the category of auxiliary and clearly defined the tasks they could and could not perform. During the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-29), nine women were appointed to the National Assembly in the Junta Superior de Beneficencia, but new prohibitions restricted capable women from occupying certain professions, such as those of real-estate registrars, officers, notaries, tax inspectors, auxiliary officers in the governmental institutions of the Spanish isles (see the royal orders of 14 Apr. 1924 and 31 Dec. 1924, and the royal decree of 20 Mar. 1925). Women were, however, allowed to occupy the lower-level jobs in feminine educational centers, and women with university titles had the recognized right to participate in the public entrance exams for the Department of Technical Law, which was associated with the Spanish Ministry of Justice and Faith (royal decrees of 2 June 1924 and 17 Nov. 1928).

24 The laws that have governed Spanish labor contracts market since 1938.

25 The female president of the Francoist Seccin Femenina commented in 1943 that, according to the new regime, Women never discover anything, they lack, of course, the innovative talent reserved by God for male brains. We women can only interpret, for better or for worse, what men have done to us, Luis Otero, La Seccin Femenina: De cuando a la mujer espaola se le pedia ser hogarea, patriota, obediente, disciplinada, abnegada, diligente, religiosa, decidida, alegre, sufrida y leal (Madrid, 2004)Google Scholar.

26 The need to define legally the newly registered and salaried situation of women workers was behind the law of July 1961 (which responded to the political, professional, and working rights of women) and the 1962 decree protecting women's right to salaried work in the case of marriage.

27 See the comparison with other dictatorships in Vzquez, Judith Carbajo, Las mujeres en el franquismo (1965-1975): Estructura y roles familiares femeninos, in Historia de las Mujeres en Espaa, 2:193.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., 211-15.

29 See Cuestra Bustillo's recent, authorized overview. For the period before the civil war, see also works by Gloria Nielfa, Consuelo Flecha, and Angel Pascual in Privilegios o Eficiencia?

30 Ybarra, Javier de Ybarra e, Nosotros, Los Ybarra: Vida, Economia y Sociedad, 1744-1902 (Barcelona, 2002), 58Google Scholar. Prez, Paloma Fernndez, Challenging the Loss of an Empire: Gonzlez & Byass of Jerez, Business History 41 (Oct. 1999): 83Google Scholar; Molina, Vis, Los God: Los ltimos 125 aos de Barcelona (Madrid, 2005)Google Scholar.

31 The family began by producing iron parts used for machinery in the textile industry. After 1917, it switched to making parts for iron and steel radiators.

32 Prez, Paloma Fernndez, ngela, Matas, Martn y Josep Roca Soler, Innovatin y triunfo de un a empresa familiar catalana: Compaa Roca Radiadores S.A., in Los cien empresarios espaoles del sigh XX, ed. Torres, Eugenio (Madrid, 2000), 27883Google Scholar.

33 See Molina, Los God, 61, and second plate of photographs between pp. 128 and 129.

34 Miquel Pieras Villalonga and Baltasar Perell Carri, La formatin de Francisca Aina Flux, in Antoni Flux Figuerola, 1853-1918: Famila, indstria i formaci, eds. Marti Pieras and Bartolome Perell (Inca, 2004).

35 Nogal, Carlos Alvarez, Los banqueros de Felipe IV y los metales preciosos americanos (1621-1665) (Madrid, 1997), 94, 9798Google Scholar.

36 Josefa was illiterate, so a witness had to sign her name for her in the Barcelona bank register. She appointed a man to do the real banking work, although she received 1,500 libras as a salary and was fully responsible for her own properties and for any losses. She also paid the salaries owed to those who kept written records of the bank's activities. Archivo Historico Protocolos Notariales, 4 Feb. 1777, Constitutin de la Compaa de Banco en Cambios de Barcelona, Escribano Ramn Font y Alier, and the Junta de Comercio, vol. 58. The authors thank Yolanda Blasco for contributing this reference.

37 Alvarez Nogal, Los banqueros de Felipe IV; Fernndez Prez, El rostro familiar de la metrpolis; and Herr, Richard, Rural Change and Royal Finances in Spain at the End of the Old Regime (Berkeley, Calif., 1989)Google Scholar.

38 Sola, Las mujeres y sus negocios en el medio urbano.

39 Sola, Angels, Les puntaires del Baix Llobregat: Primeres notes per a un estudi socioeconmic, in Les dones i la histria del Baix Llobregat, ed. Borderas, Cristina (Barcelona, 2002), 1: 31530Google Scholar.

40 Perry, Mary E., Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville (Princeton, 1990)Google Scholar.

41 Sola, Las mujeres y sus negocios"; Romero, Juan Jos, La maestria silenciosa: Maestras artesanas en Barcelona en la primera mitad del siglo XIX, Arenal: Revista de Historia de las Mujeres 4 (1997): 27594Google Scholar. See also Familial Strategies of Artisans during the Modernization Process: Barcelona, 1814-1860, History of the Family 6 (2001): 20324CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Sarasa, Carmen, Criados, nodrizas y amos: El servicio domstico en la formatin del mercado de trabajo madrileo, 1758-1868 (Madrid, 1994)Google Scholar.

43 Montserrat Miller, Feeding Barcelona: Markets, Policy, and Consumer Culture, 1714-1975 (forthcoming). See also the published references in Miller, Mercats nou-centistes a Barcelona: Una interpretaci dels seus orgens i significat cultural, Revista de l'Alguer: Anuari academic de cultura catalana 4 (Dec. 1993): 93106Google Scholar.

44 The most recent of such appointments took place under the new Socialist government, elected in March 2004, which assigned a cabinet that was 50 percent male and 50 percent female (excluding the president).

45 Albear, Natividad Ortiz, Trabajo, salarios y movimientos sociales de las mujeres en la Restauracin, in Historia de las Mujeres en Espaa, 1: 27580Google Scholar.

46 F. L. Rivire Mann, unpublished memoirs, vol. 2. Historical Archive of Francisco Rivire Ribas in Barcelona. On Rivire, see Prez, Paloma Fernndez, Un siglo y medio de Trefilera en Espaa: Moreda (1879-2004) y Rivire (1854-2004) (Barcelona, 2004), ch. 5.Google Scholar

47 See Carreras and Tafunell, Spain: Big Manufacturing Firms between State and Market, 277-304. Even in capital intensive sectors, such as that of metal mechanics, the large private firm was not the norm in Spain before the Spanish civil war. Fernndez Perz, Un sigh y medio de trefilera, ch. 3.

48 Borderas, Entre Lneas; Pilar Domnguez Prats, Trabajos iguales y condiciones desiguales: Las guardesas y los guardabarreras en RENFE, 1941-1971, in Privilegios o Eficiencia? eds. Sarasa and Glvez, 357-78; and Muoz, Lina Glvez, Compaa Arrendataria de Tabacos, 1887-1945: Cambio tecnolgico y empleo femenino (Madrid, 2000)Google Scholar.

49 Daz, Jos Manuel Cabrera, El trabajo de las mujeres en la Espaa democrtica, in Historia de las mujeres en Espaa, 3: 4043Google Scholar.

50 An amalgam of the name of the owner, Toton Cornelia, and the abbreviation for Barcelona, BCN.

51 For most of these women entrepreneurs, see Cien empresarias: Testimonios de 100 mujeres que lo han conseguido (Madrid, 2003)Google Scholar. For the Tous family firm, see La Van-guardia, 23 Mar. 2003, 79.

52 Before the civil war, Vzquez attended secondary school, and her knowledge of the French language and typewriting turned out to be of great use to her as a French exile, when she served as a translator for Spanish refugees. Back in Barcelona, she studied to be a nurse and obtained a Ph.D. in psychology in La Habana. The strong influence of her background in social Catholicism and of Pope Leo XIII's doctrine, which held that employers had to care for their workers, led her and her family to found the Barcelona business school E.A.D.A. in 1957, one of the most important private business schools in Catalonia. Now eighty-one years old, she still works in her office. La Vanguardia, 28 Mar. 2004, 67.

53 Also of note are the small Independent Container Agency S.L. founded by Coral Ortega, and Consignaciones Cuys S.L., founded by Caridad Cuys Jorge in the field of maritime and land transport, as well as the Laboratorios Biolab S.L. (a chemical lab), founded by Ana Escario Garca-Trevijano. See Cien empresarias.

54 La Vanguardia, 26 Jan. 2003, 67. Another interesting example is Amparo Moraleda, president of IBM Spain.

55 Data from the Confederation of Spanish Chambers of Commerce are cited by Berta Moreno in the Centro de Estudios Econmicos Tomillo, Mujer y Empresa en el siglo XXI: El papel de la Consolidatin Empresarial, seminar at the Cmara de Comercio de Madrid, held in Madrid, 29 Apr. 2003.

56 The conclusions of the Deloitte study have been summarized by Enrique de la Villa, partner of Deloitte and the person responsible for the firm's human capital section, in Politicas de conciliatin: La familia? Bien, gracias: Equilibrar vida profesional y privada es un deseo legtimo pero casi imposible de alcanzar, in the Dinero section of La Vanguardia, 11 July 2004, 26. In the same section, Carlos Obeso, Escuela Superior de Directin y Administratin de Empresas (ESADE), professor and director of the Instituto de Estudios Laborales, declared that the increase in the number of working hours per day among top managers is not the main factor in the struggle to combine a job with personal and family life; rather, it is the need to work on weekends, during school vacation, or on holidays.

57 Cited by Rosa Cullell in her report to the Twelfth International Women's Summit of Barcelona of 2002, and in El Pais, 13 July 2002, 53. In 2003 the total active working population in Spain was almost 17 million (6.5 million women). Only 5.41 percent of the presidents and 2.56 percent of vice-presidents of IBEX35 companies were women. Data from the Web page of the Instituto de la Mujer, based on EPA (Encuesta Poblacion Activa) figures.

58 On Marced, see El Pais, 28 July 2002,15.

59 Rodrigo Rato, in his prologue to Cien empresarias, 9.

60 Fernndez Prez, El rostro familiar de la metrpoli, and Mujeres y burguesia en el Cdiz del siglo XVIII, in La burguesa espaola en la edad moderna, ed. Recio, L. M. Enciso (Valladolid, 1996), 28098Google Scholar. For sixteenth-century Seville, see also Mary Perry, Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville.

61 Lazonick, William, Business Organization and the Myth of the Market Economy (New York, 1991)Google Scholar; Galambos, Louis, Identity and the Boundaries of Business History: An Essay on Consensus and Creativity, in Business History Around the World, eds. Amatori, Franco and Jones, Geoffrey (Cambridge, U.K., 2003), 1130CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Granovetter, Mark, Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness, American Journal of Sociology 91 (1985): 481510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62 See Maria Pallars, Una carrera de obstculos: el lastre de los estereotipos de gnero, at http:www.emprendedoras.comarticle854.html.