HISTORICAL DEMOGRAPHY

Author: ROS NAVARRO MARIA DEL CARMEN.
Year: 2003.
University: POMPEU FABRA [www.upf.edu].
Place of defense: I.U. HISTORIA JAUME VICENS I VIVES.
Place of preparation: I.U. DE HISTORIA JAUME VICENS I VIVES.

Summary: The study of social mobility of populations of the past is an issue that has aroused little interest among social scientists Spaniards. The vague but at the same time complex definition of the term "social mobility" and the lack of suitable historical sources, have been probably two of the reasons that have slowed the spread of work in this field. Despite the different optical survey for measuring social mobility in this investigation only covered from the perspective of certain demographic problems and histórico-económicos. It also say that the Catalan area, although there are many gaps on the analysis of the manufacturing economies and urban economic and social dynamics of urban centers and, especially, the role played by families craftswomen. Thus, this thesis seeks to analyze strategies relatives by menestrales of taken an urban center between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, in order to observe trends in social mobility since the pre-industrial era to move towards industrialization. The organization of work of craft guilds in pre-industrial societies or brotherhoods motion seemed to reinforce the arguments they nominated rigidity and immobility of those companies. The various provisions guilds, as well as the transmission system of family property in Catalonia based on the practice of nomination of universal heir also appeared to be aimed towards statism of society. In this context the intergenerational transmission of the motion was a strategy often used by menestrales in order to preserve the family property, understood not only as a unit of biological reproduction but also social and economic reasons, as it was a key element of the organization of artisan work. On one side is the family unit where he was the main source of manpower and the other, it could be said that knowledge of a trade was part of the family heritage. The same happened with the strategies that marriage is still as marriage was seen as an economic relationship, productive and reproductive rather than emotional. The historiography has always stressed the importance of the role played by families as they were to marry off their children. They maintained a certain matrimonial strategies to strengthen and consolidate both the social and economic position, as well as to preserve the family heritage. However, few work on the strategies adopted by relatives families menestrales Catalan have suggested the intergenerational transmission of marital motion and strategies aimed at casar-se with members of the same family environment were not in a way so widespread as historiography had underlined. Reply these two questions is the starting point of this thesis.