Full text of DOI:10.1016/S1081-602X(00)00054-3

THE DEMOGRAPHY OF THE
INDUSTRIALIZED PROVINCE OF BISCAY IN
NORTHERN SPAIN
Spatial Differences and
Long-Term Changes
ARANTZA PAREJA ALONSO
ABSTRACT: This article examines the profound social and demographic effects
of industrialization and modernization on the province of Biscay in northern
Spain. Careful analysis of household listings and census results for the years
(1825), 1900, and 1930 for three representative regions of the province—the capital
Bilbao, the new industrial center of Baracaldo, and a selection of rural communi-
ties—shows the profound effects of industrial immigration to the area on fertility
and mortality patterns, nuptiality behaviors, and household structures. In addition,
the accumulated changes left a socio-cultural division in the province between a
modernized urban–industrial and a traditional rural region—a division that was
strongly felt well into the twentieth century.
INTRODUCTION
The province of Biscay, located in northern Spain near France, is an excellent
laboratory for analyzing the changes brought about by the industrialization process.
This area, together with Catalonia, belonged within the Spanish framework of
discussion of this subject; and even nowadays they are the two principal industrializ-
ing and pioneer centers in the country.
Arantza Pareja Alonso is on the Faculty of Social Sciences and Communication, Department of Contem-
porary History, University of the Basque Country. Address: Department of Contemporary History,
University of the Basque Country, Campus of Leioa, 48.940 Leioa (Vizcaya), Spain. E-mail: hcbpaala@
lg.chu.es.
THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY An International Quarterly, Volume 5, Number 4, pages 431–448
Copyright 2000 Elsevier Science Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISSN: 1081-602X

432
THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY Vol. 5/No. 4/2000
There were, however, substantial differences between these two industrialized
areas. While in Catalonia the modernization process was based on the textile sector,
began early in time and developed gradually, in the province of Biscay industrializa-
tion was based on the iron and steel industry and started later in time (in the final
decade of the nineteenth century). The process in Biscay was initiated by coal
extraction and trade with English industry. From this, there grew a local industry
of steel manufacture that since the beginning of the twentieth century has become
very diversified (Gonza´lez Portilla 1981; Gonza´lez Portilla 1995; Montero 1990;
Montero 1994; Montero 1995).
This industrialization process in the province of Biscay had no historical prece-
dent. Still, there were some signs of proto-industrialization, with some iron being
produced and, in a semi-finished state, used internally and exported abroad. In
reality, this province was a poor area in terms of the economy of the ancien re´gime.
It was mountainous, and had an agrarian economy; the capital, Bilbao, was, however,
very important because of its commerce with Europe, the rest of Spain, and the
Americas (Zabala 1994; Gutie´rrez Mun˜oz 1994). It was, in fact, a province with a
demographic system that always had to export men to the outside (Ferna´ndez de
Pinedo 1993, 1994; Arbaiza Villalonga 1994).
The coming of industrialization to Biscay created not only great changes in
economic terms but also a new territorial profile. A new industrial space emerged;
its engine was located in the capital Bilbao, and it extended from all the municipali-
ties along both shores of the Nervio´n River to the new international port exit.
Before, all that had existed in this new space were small agricultural and fishing
settlements. As for the rest of the province, the traditional rural areas and the small
regional urban centers remained on the margin of this process. This newly created
industrial space became, in the context of Spain as a whole, economically the most
important in the northern half of the country.
There is no doubt that this process of economic change in Biscay had enormous
demographic consequences. The most important of these was that instead of ex-
porting men as it had done for centuries, the region began to exhibit an increase
in demand for a labor force in its new factories. But these demographic changes
appeared not only in the capital, Bilbao. They were also significant for the existing
population of the new industrial area as well as for that of the rural regions that
did not directly participate in the process. This is the reason why in the present
article we will observe the demographic changes that operated in these three areas.
The industrialization process in the province of Biscay constituted an authentic
systems change in demographic terms, with substantial social, familial, and political
implications for the future.
THE SOURCES AND THE SAMPLE
The sources used in the present article consist basically of nominative listings of
inhabitants, because they are the only sources that permit investigation at a local
level and at the same time help us to avoid the limitations that aggregate statistical

Demography of the Industrialized Province of Biscay
433
TABLE 1
Total Population and Proportion of Sample: Rural Biscay, Baracaldo, and Bilbao,
1787–1930
1787
1860
1877
1887
1900
1910
1920
1930
Rur. Biscay
%
5,970
5.20
8,404
4.98
8,323
4.38
8,999
3.82
9,595
2.99
9,470
2.70
9,827
2.39
10,566
2.18
Baracaldo
%
1,924
1.68
2,688
1.59
4,710
2.48
8,868
3.76
15,013
4.82
19,429
5.53
26,906
6.55
34,209
7.05
Bilbao
%
15,516
13.51
29,436
17.45
39,695
20.90
60,421
25.64
93,250 106,592 131,827 161,987
29.95 30.34 32.09 33.39
Biscay
% Sample
114,863 168,705 189,954 235,659 311,361 351,328 410,844 485,168
20.38 18.09 27.58 33.22 37.85 38.56 41.02 42.61
Source: Census Statistics and Municipal Lists of Inhabitants.
sources create.1 For some measures, census statistics and parish and civil registers
have been used to calculate birth and mortality rates.
With respect to coverage in time, we use population cross-sections at three points
that are illustrative of the changes that occurred in the province. First, the year
1825 represents in all cases the ancien re´gime. The source here is the Censo de
´
Policia (Police Census) carried out in that year although with great unevenness of
quality at the territorial level. For the localities where it is available, however, it
has shown itself to be a valuable pre-statistical source.2 However, we do not have
this source for all the municipalities of Biscay, nor did the authorities produce a
summary of provincial population totals. That is the reason why this date is never
used in studies of population aggregates. The next date to be used is 1900. By that
year, industrialization had achieved full momentum as a process of economic growth,
and therefore, 1900 is a suitable date for observing changes from the previous era.
Finally, we use the year 1930 when the industrialization process had reached a
certain maturity and stability.
With respect to the geographical area as a whole, we have chosen a representative
sample of the principal socio-economic and demographic regions for the province.
First, there is the capital, Bilbao. Second, we have the municipality of Baracaldo,
the largest population concentration representative of the new industrial space.
Baracaldo was located 10 kilometers from Bilbao on the left bank of the Nervio´n
River. In this locality there was build the emblematic Altos Hornos de Vizcaya
factory that grow to have more than 4,000 workers during the first half of the
twentieth century. And, finally, we have constituted a sample of rural Biscay by
choosing several representative rural communities within four different rural areas.3
As can be seen in Table 1, we will be working in this article with a sample of
the provincial population that fluctuates between 20 and 40 percent of the total.
From the viewpoint of the territory as a whole, each one of four units of analysis
do not have the same weight in the total sample, because their importance in terms
of population growth changed over time. Bilbao increased its weight within the
province until it reached a third of the total population in 1930. The industrial town
of Baracaldo, existing in the future metropolitan urban area, increased its size
substantially by comparison with the ancien re´gime, because this area was at the

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THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY Vol. 5/No. 4/2000
TABLE 2
Proportion of Population % (Age 15–59) by Economic Activity in Bilbao, Baracaldo, and
Rural Biscay, 1825–1930
Bilbao
2
Baracaldo
2
Rural Biscay
2
1
3
1
3
1
3
1825
1900
1930
5,60
4,70
2,20
34,10
58,00
50,50
60,30
37,30
47,30
76,14
11,23
0,61
10,60
81,57
84,55
13,25
7,19
14,83
71,41
79,30
71,60
23,22
11,20
16,54
5,36
9,60
11,12
Source: Municipal Lists of Inhabitants.
1 ϭ Agriculture.
2 ϭ Industry.
3 ϭ Services.
start basically rural. The rural areas we examine will continually diminish both with
respect to their weight and total population in the province in the twentieth century.
ECONOMIC GROWTH, DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH
AND MIGRATIONS
The industrialization process created large economic changes in the province of
Biscay. These are reflected well in the occupational structure of the active population.
In Table 2 we can observe the magnitude of the socio-economic changes that
that took place over the period, and especially toward the end of the nineteenth
century. In the ancien re´gime, the capital Bilbao, never had an important agrarian
role, being more a commercial center, and, to a lesser extent, having the craft
industry as the driving force of its economy. This contrasted greatly with what
occurred in Baracaldo and in rural Biscay, where the agricultural sector occupied
about two-thirds of the population.
It is in the beginning of the twentieth century that we can perceive the changes
that were triggered by industrial growth. In 1900, we can see that in Bilbao the
service sector has diminished and the industrial sector now occupied more than
half of the active population. It was in Baracaldo, however, where the changes can
be seen as spectacular: in 1900 altogether 81.57 percent of its population was working
in the industrial sector. By contrast, in the agricultural areas nothing had changed
except the expansion of economic and social ruralization. In other words, while in
some areas affected by industrialization the population had become mostly wage-
earners and had experienced the cessation of the old artisan system, in other areas
the change brought regression. Without doubt, when we speak of industrialization
it is necessary to underline that the modernization process had an unequal impact
in territorial terms and benefited some areas while harming others.
Finally, in the decade of the 1930s, we can observe the consolidation of the
processes already visible at the beginning of the century, as well as some additional
changes. For example, Bilbao, which earlier was more industrial, now has begun
to show growth in the service sector, which is consistent with the emergence of its
greater presence not only at the provincial level but also regionally. At the same
time, the segmentation of the territory according to occupational type continued,

Demography of the Industrialized Province of Biscay
435
TABLE 3
Natural Increase (C.N), Actual Increase (r), and Net Migration (S.M.) in Spanish Provincial
Capitals and Different Areas of Biscay, 1860–1930
C.N.
r
S.M.
C.N.
r
S.M.
C.N.
r
S.M.
1860–1877
—
1.77
3.35
Ϫ0.06
1877–1887
1.2*
4.29
6.53
0.78
1887–1900
1.2
3.23
4.13
0.25
Spa. Caps.
Bilbao
Baracaldo
Rur. Bisc.
—
—
0.78*
0.51
0.69
0.80
0.93*
3.79
5.84
0.03
0.63
0.88
0.84
1.17
2.60
3.25
0.67
0.91
0.86
1.10
2.44
Ϫ0.92
Ϫ0.02
Ϫ0.59
1900–1910
1.2
1910–1920
1.3
2.15
3.31
0.37
1920–1930
1.7
2.08
2.43
0.73
Spa. Caps.
Bilbao
Baracaldo
Rur. Bisc.
0.21
0.66
1.82
0.91
0.99
0.90
0.79
0.29
0.80
1.81
0.99
1.02
1.35
1.50
0.50
0.76
1.35
0.90
1.21
1.32
1.08
1.56
2.61
0.19
Ϫ0.72
Ϫ0.62
Ϫ0.17
* Results from the period 1860Ϫ1887.
Sources: Spanish capitals of province: Reher (1990, p. 285); Bilbao: Pareja Alonso (1997, p. 40); Baracaldo and
Rural Biscay: Arbaiza Vilallonga (1994, p. 120).
because in Baracaldo the wage-earning population involved in industry was still
increasing. In rural Biscay, the primary economic sector—agriculture—remained
the main occupation of the population, which can only be interpreted as a social
and economic lag.
One of the first and more meaningful effects of these economic change was
demographic growth.4 In Table 3 we can see that from 1860 until 1930 the population
of Biscay was growing more in relation to the other Spanish provinces.
The first thing that can be underlined in Table 3 is that the demographic growth
of the industrial areas was substantial throughout the entire period. It was always
greater than that of the capital of the province and than the average of the capitals
of the Spanish provinces, especially so between 1877 and 1887 when actual growth
reached 6.53 percent. The growth was equally impressive in the newly created
industrial area. Bilbao never had the high growth rates of the adjacent industrial
areas, but it can be seen that its growth rates were always higher than in the rest
of urban Spain which had moderate rates during the entire period. This contrasts
sharply with the slow growth rates of the rural areas of Biscay, which, as in the
nineteenth century, never exceeded one percent. With respect to socio-demographic
effects, the most interesting thing to underline is the nature of this growth. The
urbanization process, a by-product of industrialization, was created through migra-
tory movements that implied a shift of the population from some regions to others.
This can be observed in the industrial as well as in the urban areas, where a large
part of growth can be explained by highly net migration rates precisely at the
moment when the new industrial areas were growing. It was only in the period
1900–1910 that we find that natural growth replaced net migration as a source of
expansion, certainly due to the high fertility rates characteristic of the first generation
of immigrants.
What occurred in the new urban and industrial areas of Biscay contrasted sharply
with what was going on in the adjacent countryside. Real growth there was scanty

436
THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY Vol. 5/No. 4/2000
TABLE 4
Proportion of Natives and Outside–Born in Bilbao, Baracaldo, and Rural Biscay, 1825–1930
Bilbao
1900
Baracaldo
1900
Rural Biscay
1900
1825
1930
1825
1930
1825
1930
Natives
63.74
22.08
8.29
5.88
2,907
38.81
17.47
9.21
34.50
6,055
49.20
15.62
6.14
29.02
5,778
91.28
7.38
0.09
1.23
2,099
40.81
15.74
7.19
36.24
4,337
36.80
25.97
3.55
33.66
4,524
81.72
15.27
2.62
0.37
2,665
71.51
24.49
1.39
2.60
7,796
82.98
13.95
0.84
2.21
8,729
Rest. Bisc.
Rest. B. C.
Rest. Spain
n
Source: Municipal lists of inhabitants.
in comparison with other zones, but as always—and this should be noted—because
of the continuing loss of population to other areas. Without doubt, there was taking
place a labor transfer from the rural zones toward the emerging industrial zones.
The excess rural population, however, did not have to be very large, because as
we will see later, the emerging iron and steel industry in Biscay drew people from
a range industry as far away as 400 kilometers in the northern part of the Spanish
peninsula.
Industrialization and the subsequent migratory flows of arrival to the area
changed the composition of the population, affecting the distribution of the origin
of the inhabitants and, therefore, the social structure (Table 4). In the ancien re´gime,
except for Bilbao, which was accustomed to foreigners, the rest of the population
were shaped by the fact that some 80–90 percent of it was native to the area. By
contrast, in 1900 in Bilbao as well as in industrial Baracaldo, the proportion of
natives had been reduced to a half by immigrants. One should observe, however,
that among these immigrants there was a substantial number of persons born in
the province of Biscay. At the same time, it is also interesting to note that relatively
few immigrants came from the nearby Basque Country provinces, where industrial-
ization did not have an effect until the 1920s and 1930s. By contrast, people born
in the more distant Castilian meseta were numerous and constituted a percentage
as important as that of the native born, thus helping to re-shape the cultural mores
of the arrival zone. In the 1930s, the immigration process ceased. The duality of
Biscayans and Castilians, however, continued and became even more important in
the industrial cities.
Once again, it is obvious that the statements made about urban Biscay cannot
be applied to rural Biscay. The proportion of native-born there remain almost
unchanged during almost 100 years, thus remaining excluded from the process of
change evidence elsewhere. This meant the emergence of a social polarization in
the province of Biscay that had long-lasting effects. On the one hand, there was
the industrial and urban zone characterized by modern behaviors and having to
assimilate with difficulty a large number of new persons in a limited amount of
time. On the other hand, there was the rural zone that stayed on the margin.
Without progress but without problems, it was reduced to the status of guardian
of the ancient cultural values of Basque pre-industrial society that would be used
later by the nationalists political parties and their ideology.

Demography of the Industrialized Province of Biscay
437
TABLE 5
Age Structure in 1825, 1900 and 1935 in Bilbao, Baracaldo, and Rural Biscay
1825
%
1900
%
1935
%
Bilbao
0–14
15–59
Ͼ60
865
1,830
209
29.78
63.01
9.98
1,884
3,800
312
31.42
63.37
5.20
1,588
3,747
441
26.97
64.87
7.63
n
2,904
5,996
5,776
Baracaldo
0–14
15–59
Ͼ60
714
1,202
183
34.01
57.26
8.71
1,663
2,471
171
38.62
57.39
3.97
1,507
2,759
256
33.32
61.01
5.66
n
2,099
4,305
4,522
Rural Biscay
0–14
15–59
Ͼ60
1,374
2,557
474
31.19
58.04
10.76
867
1,971
638
24.94
56.70
18.35
1,921
3,156
899
32.14
52.81
15.04
n
4,405
3,476
5,976
Source: Municipal lists of inhabitants.
THE EFFECTS IN DEMOGRAPHIC STRUCTURES
One of the clearest consequences of the industrialization process in Biscay was the
modification of the demographic structures that normally do not change very
quickly: the age structure and the balance between sexes.
As it is well known, the age structure of a population depends to a large extent on
the interaction of nuptiality-fertility, mortality and migration. Despite the changing
values of these variables or in the way they combine, it is actually very difficult to
alter the age structure significantly in the long run.
As can be seen in Table 5, in the ancien re´gime the urban and rural areas had
slightly differing age structures. In essence, however, they were very similar. It was
the industrialization process that produced dramatic changes. By 1900 in Bilbao,
but especially in Baracaldo, the proportion of the infant and child age groups had
increased, while those of the older people had decreased . In sum, industrialization
had produced a rejuvenation of these urban populations (Pareja and Pe´rez-Fuentes
1997). This result can be explained only through the effects of migratory flows, in
combination with the higher fertility of the immigrants and by a general fall in life
expectancy. It is known that in Biscay immigrants arrived with children and with
higher fertility than existed at the point of arrival.5 Thirty years afterwards, in Bilbao
as well as in Baracaldo, the size of the infant and juvenile age groups had been
reduced, increasing the proportion of the aged population by comparison with what
had existed in 1900. The resulting structure in the 1930s, however, never returned
to the structure that had existed just before the start of industrialization.
By contrast, rural Biscay, which was untouched by the modernization, had felt
the consequences of the opposite process, namely, out-migration. We can see there
a decrease in the proportion of the younger age groups and a substantial increase

438
THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY Vol. 5/No. 4/2000
TABLE 6
Sex Ratio in Bilbao, Baracaldo, and Rural Biscay, 1825–1930
Bilbao Baracaldo Rural Biscay
Tot.
20–29
Tot.
20–29
Tot.
20–29
1825
1900
1930
85.04
86.19
85.37
65.95
67.61
76.84
102.80
113.12
101.78
98.90
104.57
98.23
97.50
101.34
95.04
91.38
94.17
89.17
Source: Municipal lists of inhabitants.
of the groups over 60. The growth of the older groups contrasts sharply with that
had been the case in rural Biscay before. This was an aging population in which
persons in the active ages were leaving while natural growth was unable to counter-
balance the trend. Industrialization thus produced a rejuvenation of the population
it affected, but produced aging in those populations that were marginal to it. This
meant that the urban and industrial populations gained some population assets for
the future, while the rural populations confronted a great handicap to be overcome.
Industrialization, however, affected more than to the structure by age. It also
made a difference in the balance between the sexes. In the ancien re´gime, the
balance between the sexes tended toward an equilibrium or toward complementarity
between the rural and urban areas. For example, in 1825, Bilbao had an imbalance
in favor of women as a result of people engaged in domestic labor in the age group
20 to 29 (Table 6). However, in Baracaldo and in rural Biscay, a balance was
maintained in both groups.
The coming of industrialization to the province of Biscay, based on heavy indus-
try, meant an increase in labor demand that heavily favored the males. By contrast,
industrialization based on textile production, employed mainly females. Thus, we
can see that Bilbao, when life cycle servitude for females ceased to operate, became
in the decades from 1900 to 1930 a city that was most feminine in this sense but
still more balanced than it had been in the previous era. However, the greater shift
took place in the industrial area, where the arrival of single men in the ages
around 20 years strongly altered the older rural patterns. The arrival of many such
immigrants with their families, or with the subsequent arrival of their spouses,
colored much of the process in the industrial city of Baracaldo. The absence of
women in the beginning years of industrialization was especially dramatic in the
mining zone during the last third of the nineteenth century. Then, immigration was
individual and masculine to a greater extent than we are describing here. But
in rural Biscay, almost nothing changed in these hundred years. The population
maintained a balance between the sexes over the whole period.
The sex imbalance in the industrial zones had certain implications for the mar-
riage market, because the age groups in question are the same or similar. Our
hypothesis, however, is that the implication was not negative for two reasons. In
the first place, urban and industrial areas were near to each other and the distance
of a few kilometers could be covered by train or streetcar.6 This facilitated contact
between marriageable youths. Second, immigration from distant regions meant the

Demography of the Industrialized Province of Biscay
439
TABLE 7
Ig Values for Spanish Capitals of Province and Areas of Biscay, 1825–1930
1825
1900
1930
Spa. Caps.
Bilbao
Baracaldo
Rur. Bisc.
0,574*
0,684
0,642
0,650
0,604
0,625
0,685
0,694
0,502
0,407
0,498
0,641
* Data corresponding to 1860.
Source: Spanish capitals of province: Reher (1990, p. 289); Baracaldo: Arbaiza Vilallonga (1994, p. 257); Bilbao
and Rural Biscay: Pareja Alonso (1997, p. 47).
possibility that the marriage market was segmented by geographic origins, so that,
for example, Castilian immigrants often took brides who were born in the same
place as they were from.7
THE DEMOGRAPHIC SYSTEM AND THE
DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION
The Familial and Nuptiality Systems
In terms of demographic shifts, one of the generally expected effects flowing
from industrialization and urbanization is that usually termed the demographic
transition. This consists of a decline of fertility at the personal level and a decline
in mortality at the social level.8 The new socio-economic environment would yield
a change in the demographic systems from an earlier high-pressure regime to a
modern low-pressure regime.
In the Spanish context, it has always been surprising that the two large areas
that pioneered industrialization—Catalonia and the Basque Country—showed such
different responses in terms of the fertility transition. While in Catalonia the fertility
decline began very early, in the Basque Country the fertility decline awaited the
decade of the 1920s, when it coincided with the decline in the rest of the urban
Spain, barely industrialized.9
With respect to fertility behavior in the different areas of Biscay, we can see in
Table 7 that the Basque values of Ig in the ancien re´gime were very high, in line
with the period of time being considered. With the arrival of industrialization, and
contrary to expectations, not only in the province of Biscay but also in the Spanish
provincial capitals the value continued to increase, though in Bilbao it fell slightly
by comparison with the previous period. This outcome in Bilbao can be explained
by the smaller impact of immigrants and the greater urban social complexity, which
means that some groups were reduced their fertility while others increased it. The
highest value of Ig in 1900 existed in rural Biscay followed by the value found for
Baracaldo.
In fact, industrialization had as its first consequence a substantial increase of
fertility in the directly affected populations as well as in the marginal ones. This can
be explained by patterns of fertility that immigrants born elsewhere brought to their
place of arrival, and by the deplorable conditions of everyday life that kept mortality

440
THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY Vol. 5/No. 4/2000
TABLE 8
Im Values for Spanish Provincial Capitals and Areas of Biscay, 1825–1930
1825
1900
1930
Spa. Caps.
Bilbao
Baracaldo
Rur. Bisc.
0,464*
0,388
0,547
0,548
0,476
0,459
0,740
0,446
0,455
0,407
0,547
0,375
* Data corresponding to 1787.
Source: Spanish capitals of province: Reher (1989, p. 201); Baracaldo: Arbaiza Vilallonga (1994, p. 261); Bilbao
and Rural Biscay: Pareja Alonso (1997, p. 49).
high and were not an inducement to the immigrants to reduce their marital fertility.
This reason, and a slowing down of the industrialization process in the province of
Biscay, by comparison with the maintained pace in Catalonia, is the explanation
of the fact that in 1930 we can see a fertility decrease mainly in urban Biscay but
less so in the industrial area, which contrasts with urban Spain and rural Biscay.
Nonetheless, in the decade of the 1930s, these Ig values should be considered to be
still very high if we compare them with Catalonia or other areas of northern Europe.
It is well known that Ig values are influenced by nuptial intensity and by the age
of marriage, both of these being within the framework of the familial system. One
of the most important effects of industrialization, by comparison with the old regime,
is that the new industrial population depended on a salary and not so much on the
availability of land, on inheritance from parents, or on the artisan guilds. This
had, as a first consequence, an increasingly larger proportion of the wage-earning
population now accessing to marriage at an earlier age, which could produce a
temporary increase in marital fertility in the absence of restrictive patterns.
In fact, the old regime was very restrictive with respect to access to marriage.
Table 8 shows that the restrictive effects were somewhat higher in the cities than
in rural areas, the latter showed less definitive celibacy levels and lower age of first
marriage than the former (Table 9). Still, the city-country differences were not so
substantial. In the countryside, unmarried people, especially women, did not find
a useful place in this impoverished rural world, and their presence suggested more
performance of duty than something else.10
The effects on nuptiality of working in a factory or depending on a salary can
be seen very clearly in 1900 in the cities, but much more impressively in the
industrial zones, where the intensity of nuptiality was the highest and where a greater
proportion of the wage-earning population existed. Paralleling this phenomenon of
a drop in celibacy was a considerable reduction in the age at marriage, as in
Baracaldo where the mean age at first marriage for women fell by 5 years. This
trend is especially notable in the first phase of industrialization, precisely when
fertility was increasing. Thirty years afterwards the urban areas would return to
earlier levels and almost recover their standard patterns.
By contrast, the rural areas produced the opposite phenomenon. The process of
ruralization entailed a greater restriction on nuptiality and the appearance of pat-
terns unknown before in these areas. The intensity of the nuptiality reached in 1930

Demography of the Industrialized Province of Biscay
441

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THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY Vol. 5/No. 4/2000
levels lower than the other zones. The age of marriage rose progressively which
also translated in an increase of definitive celibacy. Both behaviors were unknown
in this rural world before and revealed the difficulties that young people were facing
in with respect to household formation if they did not emigrate.
Even though these changes in nuptiality and fertility were remarkable, taking
place within the framework of a familial systems that changed imperceptibly over
the time. We can speak of an adjustment by the nuclear and the complex family
to the new circumstances and in some ways of an accentuation of earlier patterns.11
In the province of Biscay, as a rule in the Basque Country, and in some parts
of Catalonia nuclear and complex forms of the family coexisted. As can be seen
in Table 10, the simple family comprised the majority in the urban zone of Bilbao
and in the rural region of Baracaldo in the old regime. The complex households
we can find in these societies in the period mainly had the form of an extended
family.12 By contrast, much of family complexity in the rural area of Biscay was
consisted in equal parts of extended and multiple families. This complexity tran-
scended questions of socio-economic limitations, and was seen by its participants as
a culture, as a form of a very particular rural way of life that ought to be preserved.13
The industrialization process produced the need for adapting these familial sys-
tems to the new circumstances, producing different results in each area (Gonza´lez
Portilla and Pareja 2000). In the urban zones, even though the nuclear form contin-
ued to prevail, there was a progressive increase of extended families that reduced the
nuclearity of the overall society, above all in Bilbao. This fact has to be understood as
an adjustment strategy on the part of the families and a reaction to the precarious
existence in urban settlements. This situation was very common, and could be found
all in the industrial zones that accepted immigrants in large quantities. Familial
solidarity meant that families received their incoming relatives in already constituted
households. The problem of insufficient housing for workers, especially in Bilbao,
meant that this situation lasted for a long time, until well into the 1930s.14
By contrast, in rural Biscay, which was untouched by industrialization and an-
chored in the past, older familiar patterns were accentuated. The modernization
process did not arrive in these zones even in the form of the extension of new
behaviors. What can be seen in Table 10 is that the rural zones, where the earlier
economic system was now in crisis, increased the number of familial components.
The trend here was to expand familial complexity by enlarging of the components
of multiple families to higher levels than had existed in the old regime. This contrib-
uted to the social and cultural polarization that was progressively radicalizing the
province of Biscay since the start of the industrialization process.
Mortality Behavior
According to the theory of the demographic transition, mortality is a very impor-
tant variable within the set of changes leading to a decrease of fertility. In fact, the
theory holds that the two variables are related, insofar as a significant decrease of
infant mortality level is necessary for married couples to begin to consider limitation
of their family size.15
In fact, in the province of Biscay, a general decrease of infant and child mortality
became visible from the mid-eighteenth century onward in urban as well as in rural

Demography of the Industrialized Province of Biscay
443

444
THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY Vol. 5/No. 4/2000
FIGURE 1
Crude Death Rate in Bilbao, Baracaldo, and Rural Biscay, 1860–1930
areas.16 This may have been due to the fact that the province of Biscay always had
moderate mortality rates that were even lower than the rates for Spain as a whole.
The province benefited from being in the north which was little affected by epidemics
and by gastrointestinal accidents due to problems with water. High temperatures
elsewhere were deadly for the lives of children in the summertime. Also, this
province enjoyed a golden eighteenth century which meant that good economic
conditions permitted local authorities to undertake hygienic and sanitary improve-
ments that brought about an increase in life expectancy.
In Figure 1 we can see that the different areas of Biscay province had very
moderate rates of mortality by the middle of the nineteenth century (1860). Industri-
alization broke this trend. The increase in general mortality was very high in the
industrial zone in the 1880s, and this trend in mortality rise was notably in the case
of Bilbao until 1900.17 The decrease of life expectancy in these populations at this
time can be termed as unusual because this situation was unprecedented.18 This
outcome stemmed from the fact that due to the rapidity with which immigrants
began to arrive left little time for authorities to guarantee proper housing conditions
for all newcomers. The lack of living space rooms and poor sanitary infrastructures
produced overcrowding. The lack of urban hygiene and the insufficient nourishment
brought about by the precarious wages of these first families became the deadly
triangle that was costing human lives, especially those of innocent children, in
excessively high numbers (Gonzale´z Portilla and Pareja, 2000).

Demography of the Industrialized Province of Biscay
445
By comparison, rural Biscay was not affected by these processes and maintained
moderate rates. In any event, for both the rural zones and the industrial and urban
areas the critical moment of the mortality transition can be located in first decade
of the twentieth century. Reductions in mortality during this decade came about
due to joint efforts of the State and of entrepreneurs (Gonzale´z Portilla et al. 1998).
Real wages had begun to rise by this era. There was extensive building of worker’s
housing (Beascoechea et al. 2000). And the increased sensitivity of the State and
local authorities to health and social hygiene began to yield fruit. Because of these
changes, the irreversible process of secular decrease of mortality could continue
and this process produced a reduction in the general levels of fertility.
SOME CONCLUSIONS
The kind of industrialization that appeared in the province of Biscay—based on
iron and steel production—as well as the quick and accelerated pace at which the
changes arrived, combined to produce very important changes that were not only
demographic in nature. The large immigrant flows affected the old economic struc-
tures and the demographic system. Population growth produced a new spatial order
in which the weight of the population in the province, now centered in a new
densely populated area of almost 40 square kilometers, in effect moved the old
rural zones to the margin of progress. The province was segmented into an industrial
Biscay with a high immigrants presence and changed cultural values, and a rural
Biscay cohering around old values. The two Biscays became antagonistic as a result
of industrialization.
The rejuvenation of the population, the modification of the marriage system,
and the worsening of life conditions in terms of mortality were the most evident
consequences of the demographic effects of industrialization. By contrast, in rural
Biscay economic bankruptcy and social crisis accentuated the older patterns. In
this sense, the growth of the population halted the previous trends of fertility and
mortality decline.
The price of progress in these new areas was substantial, above all in terms of
human lives, mainly of children. There would have to be a wait of some 30 years
from the time industrialization began before the beneficial effects of economic
growth were felt in urban as well as rural parts of the province of Biscay.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This article has been possible thanks to a post-doc grant received from the Basque Country
Government.
NOTES
1. In the data base, the variables for each individual are: number of the family, address,
mean size of the family, family type, kinship, civil status, sex, age, occupation, literacy, and
years of residence. In populations greater than 4,000 inhabitants a sample has been made
at the Ϯ2 level with an error of 99.9 percent.
2. For criticism of the quality of this source in different municipalities of Biscay, see

446
THE HISTORY OF THE FAMILY Vol. 5/No. 4/2000
Arbaiza Vilallonga 1996, pp. 283–291; and in the case of Bilbao, see Pareja Alonso 1997,
pp. 339–345.
3. The number of municipalities in each cross-sectional analysis is different, depending
on the quality of the source. In 1825, Cea´nuri, Plencia, and Jemein are included. In 1900,
Arteaga, Cea´nuri, Lezama, Munitibar, Trucios, and Jemein are part of the sample. And
in 1930 there are Arteaga, Ceanuri, Plencia, Lezama, Arba´cegui Guerricaiz, Trucı´os, and
Jemein.
4. Between the years 1887 and 1900, the province of Biscay experienced more actual
growth from than all of Spain: see Mikelarena 1993, p. 37.
5. Concerning family migration in Bilbao, see Pareja Alonso 1996, 1997; in the industrial
village of Baracaldo, see Arbaiza Vilallonga 1998.
6. The province of Biscay had the earliest and most dense railway system in Spain:
see Gonza´lez Portilla et al. 1993.
7. This has been demonstrated in the study made by the author in Bilbao. The results
confirm the propensity by men to seek brides born in the same places of origin as them; see
Pareja Alonso 1997.
8. There is an extensive literature about the demographic transition both at the national
or local levels. As basic texts see Coale and Watkins 1986, Chesnais 1986, and more recently,
Gillis et al. 1992.
9. This lag in the fertility trend in the province of Biscay had a strong connection with
women’s opportunities for entering the labor market: Anderson 1988 expresses this idea.
The fact that in Biscay the industrial labor market drew most on men for its main labor
force is relevant to this point. For example, in the main iron-steel mill in Baracaldo, only 5
percent of emloyees were women (Pe´rez Castroviejo 1992).
10. Several sources pertaining to the Basque rural world of complex families can be
found in Urrutikoetxea 1992.
11. The adaptive strategy concept in reference to the nuclear family was first outlined
by Wall 1990.
12. This situation is common in newly industrializing areas; for another example, see
Janssens 1993.
13. This point of view has been reflected in two Spanish studies about the regions where
the extended family was of great importance: see Urrutikoetxea 1992 for the Basque Country
and Barrera 1990 for Catalonia.
14. About housing problems in Bilbao and the Biscayan industrialized area in general
see Chapter 4 in Gonza´lez Portilla 1995.
15. This assumption has long been a matter of controversy. For a recently confirmation
of the relationship between these two variables in Spain, see Reher 1999; Pareja Alonso
1997, pp. 37–59.
16. This has been demonstrated in the q0 and 4q1 annual series (1730–1930) for the
province of Biscay; see Arbaiza et al. 1996.
17. An increase in mortality levels since industrialization has been general in all the
industrializing areas in Europe: see, for example, Leboutte 1988, Oris 1993, and Bourdelais
and Demonet 1994.
18. In fact, around 1887, life expectancy in the industrialized and mining areas of Biscay
was about 25 years: see Gonza´lez Portilla 1995. In the case of Bilbao, life expectancy in
worker’s districts in 1900 was an incredible 21 years: see Pareja Alonso 1997, p. 330.
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