New Evidence for Women’s Labor Participation and Occupational Structure in Northwest Spain, 1877–1930

Abstract The traditional historical analysis of the occupational structure in Spain is flawed, based on incomplete and inaccurate census data; the consequence is an underestimation of women’s work. Census data can be corrected with interdisciplinary methodologies that make use of literature and art, as well as ethnographic, legal, and sociological studies. Applied to Galicia (an agrarian and fishing region in northwest Spain), these methods reveal a more accurate, and significantly higher, estimation of women’s participation in the primary industries (agriculture, retail trade, fishing, and seafood processing) between 1877 and 1930.