Capital, Gender and Skill

Women Homeworkers in Rural Spain

Bibliographic Data

ID3945440
AuthorsAlison Lever (corresponding author)
Year1988
Volume30
Issue30
Pages3
Publication date1988-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFeminist Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-7789 • E-ISSN: 1466-4380
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1057/fr.1988.39
OpenAlexW2025247538
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited13

This study focuses on highly skilled, low-paid workers in San Santiago, a pueblo in central Spain (population approximately 2,000), and its hinterland. The region is poor; infant mortality was high in the 1920s and 1930s, and in the 1950s and 1960s people left in large numbers for the more prosperous cities.' San Santiago is a pueblo where almost all female wage-earners embroider for a living, while most men with little or no capital work in the construction industry and agriculture. In 1981, of a total of 578 households, 451 had some income from the industry. This was comprised of 309 households with income from embroidering, and 142 with an income from putting out and selling. The sexual division of labour has changed markedly since the 1920s, when most women wage-earners worked in agriculture. The embroidery industry which has developed is particularly interesting since, in its initial stages, it was controlled by women entrepreneurs. Today the way embroideries are produced is very similar to production of fashion goods in urban areas of the UK (Mitter, 1986). There is domination by big retail companies using local firms to orchestrate production by women homeworkers in a number of satellite pueblos. These firms are Spain's two biggest retailers. One, the Corte Ingles, was ranked ninth among all Spanish firms, in terms of sales volume, in 1982, and fifth in 1984 and 1985 (Pais, 1983 and 1987). The other was part of the RUMASA group which in 1982, the last year before its nationalization, was ranked fifth.2 While the entry of big capital has brought some 'deskilling', embroidering remains a highly skilled occupation. Pay is not so much related to skill levels as to the workers' weak position in the labour market (both as rural dwellers in a depressed part of Spain and as women) and, within the industry, to its labour-intensive nature, and the 'ceiling' imposed by big capital

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