Rural Spain Research Articles

The persistence of social inequality in adult mortality in rural Spain, death cohorts 1546–1940

AbstractThis paper analyses social inequality in adult mortality in rural Aragon (Spain) between the mid-sixteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. It draws on individual-level microdata for more than 19,000 individuals, whose socioeconomic status, age at death, and other family, cultural, and environmental characteristics are documented. Using funeral wills as an indicator of social status up to the late eighteenth century, and occupational records from that point onward, and employing event history analysis, it tracks all individuals from 17 villages who died after reaching the age of seven, encompassing their complete life histories. This study allows for the verification of persistent social inequalities in mortality in rural Spain from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-twentieth century, contrasting with findings from northern European countries, where such differences only emerged from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century onward. Our results indicate that these disparities in adult mortality by socioeconomic status were especially pronounced during periods of poor harvests, affecting both men and women.

Postfiguring degrowth: How traditional popular culture challenge growth-oriented common senses

Traditional customs and rituals that continue to exist in the rural peripheries of industrialized countries may contain living elements that 'postfigure' alternative ways of living. We propose a new line of inquiry on postfiguration, at the intersection between anthropology and degrowth and inspired by Antonio Gramsci's work on folklore. By 'postfiguration' we refer to real and existing popular practices with a long history that have elements that disrupt hegemonic growthist common senses. They help imagine alternative futures based on remnants of the past that continue to exist today. We follow a Gramscian understanding of traditional popular culture as a conception of the world and of life. Popular culture contains regressive and progressive elements that need to be analytically identified and separated as part of intentional postfiguration. To illustrate how specific traditions can challenge hegemonic common senses and fuel radical political imaginaries, we analyze three practices from rural Spain: "open councils", or bodies of direct democracy that have existed for centuries; "hacenderas", or traditional forms of work sharing; and long-existing, self-managed rural carnivals associated with convivial subversion. We propose analytics of such instances of 'postfiguration' and discuss the politics that can be built around them.

The importance of women in 21st century rural Spain: Challenges and opportunities

The recent wave of urbanization has resulted in a significant increase in the number of people living in urban areas, surpassing those in rural areas. This concentration of people in cities promotes resource efficiency and economic growth. In Spain, 85% of the population live in urban (and peri-urban) areas, compared to 15% in rural areas. In recent times, the expression “España Vaciada” or “Empty Spain” has become popular to describe the depopulation problem in rural parts of the country. The objective of this qualitative study was to measure and analyze the opinions and perceptions that rural women have regarding the problems they are currently experiencing as well as their role as change agents in potentially promoting rural socio-economic resurgence both in the short and long term. We implemented a ten-question online survey using Google Forms from March 28th to May 13th, 2024. 216 women residing in towns and/or rural areas from 39 of the 50 provinces in Spain answered the survey. Most female interviewees affirmed that they played a very or fairly important role in rural areas, and most considered that their role would become more relevant in coming years. The depopulation problem was primarily caused by three main issues: a lack of employment, depopulation, and inadequate transportation. Although the role of women is a pillar for their communities, their numbers in rural Spain have been dwindling, and the territories have become, through time, more masculinized, thereby creating the imperative of creating socioeconomic opportunities for rural women to redress the resultant gender imbalance.

Looking for Daisies: The Hidden Attraction and Arrival Infrastructures of Welcoming Spaces in Rural Spain

In recent decades, shrinking areas in rural Spain have sought the arrival of newcomers. This migration is driven mainly by economic reasons and is not related to regionalizing or redistribution migration policies. The main contribution of this article is to highlight how the articulation between social agents’ (public administrations, third sector, enterprises, migrant communities, and civil society) strategies and infrastructuring practices, within the framework of political, social, and economic structural contexts, has crystalized into specific “welcoming spaces,” impacting newcomers’ access to resources. The main innovation lies in the identification of an analysis model applied to three different types of “welcoming spaces” of attraction, arrival, and settlement, considering their impact on other mobilities. We have named them in order to represent the connection of rural territories with nature: the waves, the oak, and the river. The analysis reveals the factors that favor but also block access to resources for newcomers. This has allowed us to design an ideal type of welcoming space, which we have called “Daisy,” and which beyond its theoretical value, could facilitate the revitalization of shrinking areas. “Looking for Daisies” represents the desire of local social actors, lost in the disjointed way in which infrastructuring practices are managed, to reach this goal. Framed under the Horizon 2020-funded program Welcoming Spaces—Investing in “Welcoming Spaces” in Europe: Revitalizing Shrinking Areas by Hosting non-EU Migrants (H2020-SC6-Migration-2019-870952), the research is based on qualitative fieldwork (comprising 75 semi-structured interviews and participant observation), carried out in three localities in two regions of Spain (Galicia and Castilla León).

Trends in Twin Births and Survival in Rural Spain: Evidence from 18th to 20th Century.

This study examines the changes over time of the twinning rate and infant and child mortality across 17 rural villages in the province of Zaragoza (Spain) over a span of 200 years. The aim is to understand how the twinning rate evolved in conjunction with the processes of economic and social modernization, as well as the demographic transition. During the period analyzed, the twinning rate increased by 10%, rising from 1.26 per 1000 births in the second half of the 18th century to 1.38 per 1000 births in the first half of the 20th century. This rate varied due to hereditary issues, biological factors such as the mother's age and parity, and socioeconomic features like family occupation and the mother's education level. In terms of child mortality, twins historically faced a significantly higher mortality rate. However, they benefited greatly from the mortality transition, at least in absolute numbers. While nearly 60% of twins did not survive beyond 5 years of age in earlier periods, the mortality rate for twins decreased to 40% by the first half of the 20th century. The excess mortality was particularly severe for girls, driven by a widespread preference for sons, which led to higher mortality rates for girls in the first 5 years of life, especially in the earliest months. These findings help us understand the improvements in uterine and childhood survival rates for contemporary twins, which can be attributed to the socioeconomic and medical advancements of the 20th century.

Men’s and women’s visions of employment policies to combat depopulation in rural Spain

The paper draws on the data gathered from a survey on men and women living in Spanish municipalities affected by depopulation. Using factor analysis, it identifies labour profiles among men and women associated with socio-demographic, economic and technological variables. We establish four profiles related to employment status for the men and women in a rural environment. For the women, we identify a group linked to the services sector, another to the public administration sector, and a group with unstable employment and the intention to emigrate, with these women being the youngest. Additionally, there is a group of women that report not working or never having worked, with these individuals being older and associated with family businesses. Regarding the men, the first three groups correspond to the agricultural sector, the industry sector and the services sector, with there also being a further group consisting of young men either without a job or with an unstable one. The article also applies cluster analysis to examine men and women’s preferences as regards the policies currently most widely used to promote rural employment in Spain: concession of tax benefits for job creation, the promotion of entrepreneurial activity, innovation in the primary sector and the advancement of rural tourism. The order of preference for the four policies is the same for both sexes, with entrepreneurship and improved funding being the most preferred, followed by innovation in agricultural activity. The results show, however, that variables such as age, level of education, type of job, economic sector, income and size of municipality of residence, have a different impact on men’s and women’s choices.

The Journey to Teruel: Immigrant Women’s Pathways to the Domestic Sector in Rural Spain

This study aimed to deepen the understanding of the motivations and pathways that lead immigrant women to pursue employment in the home-based, elderly care sector in the Spanish countryside. To this end, we examine the individual perspectives of several foreign-born women engaged in this occupation across various small villages in Teruel, a sparsely populated province in eastern Spain. Relying predominantly on the aspirations–capabilities framework, we make the case that employment in the sector is on many occasions exploitative, but that it also may provide an often-needed opportunity for migrants to relocate to the Global North. In the context of our study we argue that these processes of relocation showcased elements of both precarious and improvement migration, and that they were driven primarily by limited economic prospects in many of the interviewees’ countries of origin. Additionally, we explore the relationship between constraints on international mobility and the aspirations of the study participants to improve their life circumstances by examining their migration pathways, the challenges they faced as newcomers, and the specifics of securing jobs and establishing new lives in the Spanish countryside.

Substantiating vulnerability in As bestas (2022): a political neo-noir encounter between insiders and outsiders in rural Spain

ABSTRACT This paper delineates how neo-noir Spanish cinema is adopting enigmatic narratives to represent the grim rural realities of Galicia’s small village as symbolic political and economic struggles that strengthen in conjunctures of crisis. Analyzing Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s As Bestas (2022) (The Beasts) as a paradigmatic case, this study fosters the notion of rural noir through an exploration of the vulnerability of global and local bodies. In doing so, we claim that the film turns into a political neo-noir whose filmic discourse outlines the enduring and vulnerable aspects that move beyond the everlasting crisis of the psychopath. By leveraging Judith Butler’s (2004) theoretical construct of ‘vulnerability’, we map out the film’s non-dualistic eco-aesthetic and auteurist representational methods that transform vicarious violence into eco-love, grief, and duelling. More precisely, the shared spatial experience of affections and emotions generates an avenue where an excess of masculine values and patriarchal norms are refused to give way to a sense of community entrenched in vulnerability, intrinsic to democratic scarcity and the human condition.

Emotional attachment and philosophical worldviews explain human connectedness to nature in abandoned rural Spain

Land abandonment and rural depopulation are escalating worldwide, presenting sustainability dilemmas for both rural and urban regions. However, there remains a dearth of research on the sociocultural dimensions of abandonment from a local standpoint. This investigation focuses on a case study conducted in southeastern Spain, wherein a social survey was used to evaluate the perspectives of local communities concerning human–nature interconnectedness, land abandonment, and their impacts on quality of life. A survey campaign was administered in the case study region during the spring of 2021, and 122 surveys were collected. The findings identify, in the context of the progressive abandonment of rural lands in Spain, key factors that explain the desire of local people to inhabit and not abandon rural regions in southeastern Spain. Our results also show a strong connection between people and nature in rural Spain, which is explained by the capacity of locals to form relational values in rural environments and the existence of philosophical worldviews and emotional attachments to rural lifestyles. However, barriers to not abandoning rural environments were also identified, including a lack of professional and economic opportunities. Our results suggest that the mitigation of depopulation in rural areas in Spain requires actions to foster land stewardship and address socioeconomic imbalances.

‘ICT Development and depopulation: exploring the effects of municipal size on citizens’ technological profiles and policy evaluation in rural Spain'

ABSTRACT Increasing ICT availability and adoption is at the core of public policies to tackle rural depopulation. Taking as a reference the Digital Divide theory and the UTAUT model, the article shows how municipal size is associated with different technological profiles among rural citizens differing in terms of access and, above all, ICT quality, usage levels and perceived usefulness. On the other hand, the article analyses citizens’ perception of the management of rural policies based on the results of a survey of inhabitants of depopulated inland Spain. It uses cluster analysis around the variables of municipal size and opinion of citizens about ICT in recent years. The results reflect a generalized perception of non-compliance with the policies, although a certain conformism is detected in small municipalities. The central government is the one chosen to lead these policies followed by the regional governments.

“There is Only One Mother”: The Importance of Mother in Rural Spain, 1750–1959

Several studies have shown the importance of the mother in the survival and wellbeing of her children. However, none of them have analyzed the rural areas of the Iberian Peninsula. In this article we use the life courses of more than 10 thousand children born between 1750 and 1959 to understand the effects of being motherless on the survival, educative outputs, and wellbeing. To achieve this, we use descriptive statistics as well as Cox and OLS regression models. Our results confirm that the mother is one of the most important relative for the survival and wellbeing of her young children.

Contribution of Leader Community Initiative to People’s Quality of Life: A Case of Thirty Years Application in Rural Spain

Abstract LEADER development programs have a primary objective of enhancing the quality of life. However, their evaluation has been limited due to the extensive time required for analysis. This report investigates the contribution of the LEADER approach to improving the quality of life through a thirty-year case study in the Alcarria Conquense region of Spain (1991-2021). Funding for projects focused on rural heritage, infrastructure, and essential services has played a pivotal role in creating conditions for a prosperous life in the region. Nonetheless, limitations have emerged, including deepening territorial imbalances, a heavy reliance on local government entities, and potential drawbacks to the innovation and management capacity of other economic and social actors. While LEADER offer a valuable tool for policymakers seeking to enhance rural communities' quality of life, further analysis is necessary to refine their implementation and maximize their overall impact.

Breaking the misery wheel? Fertility control, social mobility, and biological well-being in rural Spain (1835–1959)

Abstract Fertility control strategies became widespread in rural Spain through the twentieth century: a significant number of parents decided to reduce their marital fertility once the advantages of control strategies became widely known. This paper explores the impact of those practices on children through a comparative study of the heights and occupations of grandparents, parents, and children. We analyze more than 1,200 individuals from three different generations born between 1835 and 1959 in 14 rural Spanish villages, studying whether the advantages associated with fertility control were maintained over time favoring a better family status or whether they were diluted in the next generation. The largest increases in height were among children whose parents controlled their fertility by stopping having children before the mother's 36th birthday. However, it does not seem that this increase in biological well-being was accompanied by major episodes of upward social mobility.

The Far Right and the ‘Gifts of Nature’ in Rural Spain

Vox, a rising far-right party, plays on concerns about the emptying Spanish countryside to promote its authoritarian version of traditional values. Lately it has developed an environmental narrative portraying rural life as under threat from progressive policies.

‘El mío no es un asilo’: Aging Masculinity, Disability, and Animalization in Mario Camus’s Los santos inocentes

As an attempt to reflect 1960s rural Spain under Franco’s dictatorship, Mario Camus’s 1984 film adaptation of Miguel Delibes’s Los santos inocentes [The Holy Innocents], published three years before, depicts the daily coexistence of human and non-human animals in an Extremaduran cortijo. Within the highly hierarchized social structure of the Francoist regime, the elderly male characters that are physically or mentally disabled are consistently exploited and humiliated by the caste of señoritos as a metaphorical reproduction of the type of class-based hierarchy established after the Spanish Civil War between the victors and the defeated. The aim of this paper is to examine how the aging, disabled male body of the dispossessed contributes to deepening the class divide through their animalization. By aesthetically emphasizing the blurring of species boundaries in the lower social strata, Camus recreates the type of rural Spain that, under the auspices of the dictatorship, endorses an understanding of the normative, young masculine body as one that distinguishes itself through biological, class-based and androcentric determinism. This triply reinforced canon of the male subject, so irreparably bound to tautologies between class and species, places the aging, masculine body at the heart of an oppressive social system that seeks to justify its hierarchy, mythologizing it as the only viable option through which to erect an empowered, reputable nation.

Aging, Masculinity, and Ecology: Celso Bugallo’s Multiple Insurgencies in Cenizas del cielo

Environmental drama film Cenizas del cielo (2008), set in a polluted area of the otherwise idyllic North-western region of Asturias, was internationally saluted as Spain’s first explicitly ecologist film. While most studies have focused on its environmentalist theme, the film presents additional thematic complexities, such as the progressive depopulation of fast-aging rural Spain, the challenges of growing old as a lonesome man in a traditional, patriarchal community, and generational frictions between older peasants and younger environmental activists. In Cenizas del cielo, Galician-born actor Celso Bugallo embodies the complex intersections between aging, masculinity, and ecology. He plays the combative character of Federico, a local farmer in his sixties who lost his wife to the pollutants of a nearby power plant. In his determination to see the plant closed, this rebellious character clashes with numerous opponents, such as workers of the power plant, local authorities and even some of his own small-village neighbors. A living metaphor of an aging but defiant España vaciada, Bugallo’s character is studied in this paper as the site of multiple insurgencies.

The third vertex of the Latinx triangle: Latin America and the repopulation of rural Spain

In the 1980s, a significant number of Latin Americans began moving to urban centers in the Iberian peninsula. These arrivals grew exponentially. By 2022, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela each had more than 100,000 citizens in Spain. While cities have been the most visible poles of attraction for Latin American immigration, small towns have also witnessed the arrival of Latin Americans. Rural Spain, commonly known as “empty Spain,” had been shrinking and waning in silence for decades, due to an aging population and the migration of young adults to the cities. In 2021 Spain’s central government started to speak of migration as a solution for depopulation, but this proposal’s origins date further back. In 2000 the local government of Aguaviva, a small town in Teruel, decided to bring back life to “empty Spain” by inviting Argentinian families to settle there in exchange for employment and housing. Since then, many more towns have followed suit. The documentary Aguaviva: La vida en tres maletas (2004, “Aguaviva: Life in Three Suitcases”), directed by Verónica Marchiaro and Mario Burbano, offers the story of this first rural repopulation. A close look at the diverse lived experiences portrayed in the documentary, and its different points of views on hospitality, can help guide current conversations on repopulation.

A decade beyond the economic recession: A study of health-related lifestyles in urban and rural Spain (2006-2017).

The 2008 economic recession may have affected health-related indicators differently depending on the living environment. We analyze health-related indicators in Spain using data from four Spanish health surveys (2006, 2011, 2014, and 2017, 95 924 individuals aged ≥16 years). In 2006-2011, physical activity decreased among men and women, while in 2006-2017, physical activity only decreased among urban women. Daily vegetable intake, except in rural women, increased in 2006-2011 but decreased in 2006-2017 in all groups. Smoking decreased among urban women in 2006-2011 and 2006-2014 but only decreased among men, and even increased among rural women, in 2006-2017. In 2006-2017, obesity increased among men and urban women, good self-rated health status increased in all groups and flu vaccination declined. Blood pressure and cholesterol control decreased in urban women in 2006-2011 but increased in 2006-2017 in all groups, as well as mammographic and cytological control. Our findings highlight the differential impact of the economic recession on health-related lifestyles according to sex and place of residence, underscoring the need for targeted health policies to address evolving health disparities over time.

“Born yesterday, baptized today, buried tomorrow”: Early baptism as an indicator of negative life outcomes in rural Spain, 1890-1939

For centuries, the Catholic Church demanded that baptisms take place in the hours immediately after birth. This custom began to lose importance in the last decade of the nineteenth century, which increased the average time between birth and baptism. However, some children continued to be baptized shortly following their birth. Our objective is to analyze whether early baptism could serve as an indicator of the state of a child’s health in the short and long term. In our examination of the period 1890-1939, the results confirm that children with early baptisms were more likely to die (especially during the first month of life), married earlier and at a greater rate compared to the general population and, probably, experienced shorter lifespans.

Land transformation changes people´s values of ecosystem services in Las Vegas agrarian landscapes of Madrid Spain

Agrarian landscapes play a vital role in securing ecosystem services to people. These environments in central rural Spain are threatened by urban and industrial expansion, as expansion has and continues to cause the exile of young people to cities and rural abandonment. Land transformation in these environments not only alters the diversity of the services the ecosystems provide to people but may also change the values people hold on these landscapes. Incorporating people´s perceptions regarding trade-offs and synergies associated with land transformation is thus key for designing land use policies that mitigate these impacts. The general objective of this research is to explore whether the values that people attribute to land use and ecosystem service changes can inform land-related decision-making. To do so, we first 1) characterized and mapped major land use change trajectories that occurred for the 1990–2018 period, 2) assessed social perceptions regarding the impacts of land use change trajectories on ecosystem services, 3)explored the vulnerability level of ecosystem services, and 4) assessed the social importance of ecosystem services for the wellbeing of locals. From the results, we identified three major land use change trajectories, including agricultural abandonment, aggregate industry and agricultural intensification. The results identified that agricultural abandonment is generally perceived to negatively impact food from agriculture, soil fertility, and maintenance of the gene pool through local varieties. We also found that agricultural intensification is recognized as negatively impacting the gene pool through local varieties and soil fertility. Our findings indicate the need to study the impacts of land use changes beyond biophysical changes, and link them to changes in people´s values. We finally argue that this research will be crucial for identifying socially resilient pathways of European agricultural landscapes.