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Exploring Changes in Earnings Inequality during Industrialization: Barcelona, 1856-1905

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  • Natalia Mora-Sitja

Abstract

This paper provides estimates of wage dispersion in nineteenth-century Barcelona and documents the compression of the pay distribution between 1856 and 1905. A decomposition of inequality changes by sector and gender leads to two conclusions. First, that most of the changes occurred within each industry, of which the textile industry stands out; and second that although traditional analyses of changes in earnings inequality tend to ignore female labour and earnings arising from piecework, these seem to be, togther with the new factory discipline, the key factors in explaining shifts in earnings inequality in industrializing societies.

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  • Natalia Mora-Sitja, 2006. "Exploring Changes in Earnings Inequality during Industrialization: Barcelona, 1856-1905," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _061, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:oxf:esohwp:_061
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    1. Santiago-Caballero, Carlos, 2011. "Income inequality in central Spain, 1690-1800," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 83-96, January.

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