La desagrarización de la sociedad rural española, 1950-1991

The article deals with the transformation of the occupational structure of rural Spain between 1950 and 1991. Based on a critical use of population census data, the article shows that the decline of agriculture in the economy of rural Spain was a general and gradual transformation. Occupational change took place not only in those rural areas that belonged to highly dynamic urban-centred networks and were thus restructured by the rise of new economic and residential functions. Also, occupational change occurred in other rural communities in which both endogenous forces towards diversification and spread effects from urban networks were weaker. In such cases, the central role of agriculture in the local economy led to depopulation, while comparatively high rates of out-migration for agrarian populations led to increases in the share of non-agricultural sectors that went beyond the real growth of the latter in absolute terms. This was in fact the most common path of rural change in Spain during this period.