Rural Spain Research Articles

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

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

‘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.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in mortality due to respiratory diseases: A comparative analysis of 2021 and 2020 vs 2019 in Spain

IntroductionWe previously reported an increase in respiratory mortality in 2020 in Spain after COVID-19. It is unclear if this rise is sustained in the longer-term. We aimed to determine whether respiratory mortality in 2021 in Spain returned to pre-pandemic levels. Material and methodsIn an observational, large study using official National Institute of Statistics data, we explored deaths due to respiratory diseases, that is, all causes of death by the standard WHO list of diseases of the respiratory system plus COVID-19, tuberculosis and lung cancer. Using the latest available official data of Spain, we analyzed changes in the mortality pattern in Spain from January 2019 to December 2021. We endorsed STROBE guidance for observational research. ResultsThere were 98,714 deaths due to respiratory diseases in 2021 in Spain, corresponding to 21.9% of all deaths, becoming second in the ranking of causes of death. Respiratory diseases mortality in Spain has not returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2021, still with an increase of 30.3% (95% CI 30.2–30.4) compared to rates in 2019. All respiratory-specific causes of death decreased in 2021, except for lung cancer, that increased in women and decreased in men compared to 2019 (both p<0.05). In a multivariate analysis some established risk factors for respiratory diseases mortality were confirmed, such as male gender and older age; further, an association with reduced mortality in rural Spain was observed, still with a large geographical variability. ConclusionsThe COVID-19 pandemic has had a lasting impact on deaths due to respiratory diseases and certain specific causes of death in 2021, and it has disproportionately affected certain regions.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in mortality due to respiratory diseases: A comparative analysis of 2021 and 2020 vs 2019 in Spain

IntroductionWe previously reported an increase in respiratory mortality in 2020 in Spain after COVID-19. It is unclear if this rise is sustained in the longer-term. We aimed to determine whether respiratory mortality in 2021 in Spain returned to pre-pandemic levels. Material and methodsIn an observational, large study using official National Institute of Statistics data, we explored deaths due to respiratory diseases, that is, all causes of death by the standard WHO list of diseases of the respiratory system plus COVID-19, tuberculosis and lung cancer. Using the latest available official data of Spain, we analyzed changes in the mortality pattern in Spain from January 2019 to December 2021. We endorsed STROBE guidance for observational research. ResultsThere were 98,714 deaths due to respiratory diseases in 2021 in Spain, corresponding to 21.9% of all deaths, becoming second in the ranking of causes of death. Respiratory diseases mortality in Spain has not returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2021, still with an increase of 30.3% (95% CI 30.2–30.4) compared to rates in 2019. All respiratory-specific causes of death decreased in 2021, except for lung cancer, that increased in women and decreased in men compared to 2019 (both p<0.05). In a multivariate analysis some established risk factors for respiratory diseases mortality were confirmed, such as male gender and older age; further, an association with reduced mortality in rural Spain was observed, still with a large geographical variability. ConclusionsThe COVID-19 pandemic has had a lasting impact on deaths due to respiratory diseases and certain specific causes of death in 2021, and it has disproportionately affected certain regions.

Is Spanish depopulation irreversible? Recent demographic and spatial changes in small municipalities

Many small Spanish municipalities (those with less than 2000 inhabitants) experienced population growth during the first decade of the 21st century due to a large influx of foreign immigrants. However, the Great Recession put an end to this trend. The first aim of this paper is to analyse the demographic impact of the new phase of economic growth – known as the “post-crisis” period (2014–2020) – on small Spanish municipalities. The second aim is to carry out an initial analysis of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis on the growth of these municipalities. The results of a nine-category typology show that during the post-crisis period, the vast majority of villages continued to depopulate, while a minority gained population or had stagnant population figures. The Covid-19 pandemic represented a turning point, with small municipalities as a whole starting to grow again. However, the population did not increase in all categories of villages or in all regions of rural Spain. The results for both periods (post-crisis and Covid-19 pandemic) highlight the growing importance of migration to demographic change in the smallest municipalities.

Barcelona, City of Margins by Olga Sendra Ferrer

Reviewed by: Barcelona, City of Margins by Olga Sendra Ferrer Sandra Ortiz-València Sendra Ferrer, Olga. Barcelona, City of Margins. U of Toronto P, 2022. Pp. 267. ISBN 978-1-4875-0848-7. Barcelona, City of Margins delves into the constitution of spaces of dissent during the 1950s and 1960s of Franco’s dictatorship, following a well-established trend in Peninsular Studies, but what makes the book stand out is its original multidisciplinary approach. It brings together Marxist [End Page 152] theory, urbanism, literary studies, and photography to re-interpret this particular historical period and shed light on how social, political, economic, and cultural factors contribute to the creation of dissidence and resistance. Taking Barcelona as a geographical point of reference, the book illustrates “how the material city facilitates the creation and development of a system of critique that then lays out the foundation for the democratic city to come” (3). To put it simply, by interpreting a variety of cultural productions, Barcelona, City of Margins proves that material and geographic marginalization in urban spaces is directly connected to the constitution of democratic values. Barcelona, City of Margins lays out its argument in four chapters that build upon each other, balancing theoretical approaches—particularly, Henri Lefebvre’s ideas of abstract space—and close readings of different cultural expressions—most prominently, literature and photography. The first chapter sets up the historical context and employs the term “urban turn” to describe the change of narrative in Francoist ideological discourse: which left behind its mythology about rural Spain and embraced the metropoles and modernization as the banners of national identity to facilitate the entrance into hegemonic capitalism. This introductory chapter analyzes the material and geographical consequences that this “urban turn” cast on the metropoles, particularly Barcelona: the emergence of neighborhoods at the margins that forged dissent and decades later were essential in the constitution of democracy. Within this context, the second chapter of the book proposes Francisco Candel’s writings as the first expression of the dissidence generated in and by the suburbia population. As the analysis shows, Candel is relevant because he constructs the identity of these neighborhoods, challenges homogenization through the use of irony and calls for integration predicating upon equality and democratic values. Even though this historical phenomenon has been widely analyzed in Peninsular studies, these chapters articulate an original interpretation that lays bare the relationship between the development of the capitalist city and the foundations of democracy. Still, the argument of the book does not end here; rather, it is also reinforced by bringing into the discussion other means of expression. That is why, the third chapter of Barcelona, City of Margins takes photography as the object of study; after evaluating some photographers from the Nova Avanguarda (in particular, Xavier Miserachs or Francesc Català Roca), this section pinpoints Joan Colom’s photographic production as an illustration of dissidence, because “[he] emphasizes the dialectic nature of coexistence in the street, precisely that which the housing complexes were intended to eradicate, as he renews the contact between bodies” (143). In short, Colom’s photographs display the contradictory nature of public spaces and establish a dialogue between the official discourse about the city and the material reality of these new neighborhoods by showing a disrupted image of the streets of Barcelona. Then, chapter four delves deeper into photographic materials, but includes the component of gender by exploring the work of three Catalan female photographers: Milagros Cartula, Carme Garcia, and Colita (Isabel Steva i Hernández). All of them express dissent in their photography, particularly challenging the male gaze undoubtedly present in Colom’s work and the Nova Avanguarda, but the latter is emphasized in the analysis because of her depictions of the new neighborhoods created by Francoist urbanism. Colita’s photographs present “a new urban geography that breaks with monumentalism and the conception of space as the product of a discursivity and practice removed from daily life . . . [and] a change of perspective in the female gaze” (183–84). The analysis shows that her photographs employ visual irony and give agency to female characters to objectify the city as much as the language of the city objectifies women. Therefore, the chapters present...

Growth and decline in rural Spain: an exploratory analysis

ABSTRACT The depopulation of rural areas in both developed and developing countries has become a complex problem with important implications for issues of equality and sustainability. We present a spatial exploratory analysis of the multidimensional factors related to the depopulation of Spain's rural areas. Using highly granular population data to estimate experienced population density allows us to highlight significant differences compared to the conventional administrative boundary in terms of the usual definition of densities. Based on this, we develop a new typology of declining rural areas that takes into account access to urban areas. While most rural areas have been suffering depopulation over the last decades, our results also show that rural areas themselves are not a homogeneous group and that rural areas show strong heterogeneity along different dimensions associated with growth and decline.