Spain’s Economic Transformation & Social Shifts 1959-1975
Spain’s Economic Transformation and Social Shifts (1959-1975)
Developmentalism: Spain’s Economic Miracle
Spain went from a struggling nation to the tenth-largest industrial power after a decade of 7% annual growth. This period is often referred to as the “Spanish Miracle.”
Stabilization Plan and Economic Growth Factors
Change in Economic Policy: Stabilization Plan (1959)
- Devaluation of the peseta (lost half its value against the U.S. dollar)
- Public spending cuts
- Liberalization of markets: abolition of import quotas
- Other measures: limitation of credit to banks, increased indirect taxes (gasoline and snuff), creation of formal credit institutions, IMF and U.S. funders
Development Plans
Inspired by the five-year plans of the USSR.
Economic Growth Factors
- Emigration: Remittances from one million migrants to Western Europe
- Tourism: Attracted by the price differential
- Foreign investment: Favored by low wages and worker control
- Favorable international situation: Until the oil crisis of 1973
Demographic Trends
Population Growth
From 30 to 34 million during this period due to:
- Baby boomers (growth rate above the postwar minimum)
- Decline in mortality
- Growth of life expectancy
Rural Exodus
Caused by:
- Modernization of the countryside in its productive aspect (mechanization)
- Lower agricultural wages (in areas of large estates) and control of agricultural prices (of survival)
- Attraction of industrial employment in the traditional cores and the poles of development generated by development plans (though they failed to industrialize the depressed areas)
Regional Imbalances
Increased industrial development in regions with more tradition, which had good connections and where large public companies settled. Andalusia, Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha, Murcia, and Galicia remained behind and could hardly hold their demographic.
Changes in the Working Population
Decline in employment in the primary sector, which allows increased industrial employment (taking first place) and, to a lesser extent, tertiary employment. However, agricultural assets did not fall below 30% until 1970 (much higher than in Western countries). Women entered the labor market and migrated to Europe.
The Oligarchy, the Middle Classes, and the World of Work
Oligarchy
Composed of:
- Aristocracy of finance, increasing the participation of banks in other sectors
- National bourgeoisie
- Landowning oligarchy, in retreat
- Bureaucracy (school administration positions, party, and union) and senior military commanders
Middle Class
They grew significantly, shaping a new urban middle class of liberal professionals, civil servants, and white-collar workers, in addition to small and medium businesses in the three sectors.
World of Work
- Decrease in the number of laborers
- Increase in industrial and service employment, nurtured by the rural exodus (unskilled, crammed into shantytowns on the periphery of cities and industrial areas) from which they differentiate skilled workers (with higher salaries) and the producers of public corporations (who benefit from paternalism: homes, stores)
- Living conditions improved little by little, increasing consumption capacity (electricity, utilities) although housing was a chronic problem
Social Changes During the Second Period of the Franco Regime
- Growth and population redistribution
- Development of the consumer society
- Development of industrial society over the previous agrarian-based society
- Urban sprawl
- Changing social values, with increasing secularization and a craving for Western European-style freedoms