Is There a New Service Proletariat? Post-industrial Employment Growth and Social Inequality in Spain

Bibliographic Data

ID2235293
AuthorsFabrizio Bernardi (0000-0002-5544-5184), L Garrido, Luis Javier Garrido Medina (0000-0002-3946-9637, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume24
Issue3
Pages299-313
Publication date2008-02-20
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0266-7215 • E-ISSN: 1468-2672
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/esr/jcn003
PMID24839339
PMCIDPMC4021387
OpenAlexW2151412828
LanguageEN
Citations received30
References cited9

In Spain the absolute number of employed persons has increased from about 12,300,000 persons in 1994 to 19,300,000 at the end of 2005. In the same period, the number of immigrants has increased from about 500,000 to more than 4 million. The aim of this paper is to analyse the implications of these changes for social inequality. In particular, we investigate whether a new type of unskilled service class is likely to emerge as a distinct social class. We address this issue by means of three more specific research questions. The first one refers to the pattern of changes in the employment structure by occupational class: has the mentioned employment growth implied an expansion of the swelling service proletariat? The other two questions refer to the issue of demographic class formation: which is the composition of the class structure by gender and country of origin? And, are unskilled service occupations stop-gaps springboards towards better positions, or are they long-term traps? We answer these questions by means of a dynamic analysis of the panel data of the Spanish Labour Force Surveys (SLFS). We study trends over time in the class structure and, then, analyse upward mobility chances and the risk of falling into unemployment from unskilled occupations from year t to year t 1.

Class formation · Demographic economics · Economic growth · Economics · Economy · Immigration · Inequality · Labour economics · Political science · Politics · Proletariat · Service (business) · Social class · Social inequality · Social mobility · Social science · Sociology · Unemployment · Employment and Welfare Studies · Labor market dynamics and wage inequality · Law · Mathematics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

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