INEQUALITY IN FAMILY CONSUMPTION: GENDER DIFFERENCES IN CONTEMPORARY SPAIN (1850-1930)

Abstract

Economic Theory has recently revised during last years the following two basic ideas on the economic working of families: i) family income is the sum of the individual income of each of its members (income pooling); and ii) all family members living in the household have equal access to family resources. Unequal access to family resources among women and men, as well as among elderly, adults and children, is now understood as an input. For instance, women ate less food and of worst quality than men. But it is also understood as an output: women had poorer health, higher epidemic mortality and were smaller than men because they had received less food and poorer medical care. Inequalities in intra-family consumption are currently drawing the attention of academics and international agencies but it is not yet in the Economic History agenda. In this paper we look at some of the resources consumed by Spanish families in the 19th century: food, alcoholic beverages, clothes and shoes. Medical topographies, our main source, suggest that gender inequality structured access to family resources, and that this inequality had a strong impact on the health and well-being of family members.