Development and Regional Disparities in Numeracy Levels

5.6.1 Overall Trends and Regional Disparities in Spanish Education

Spanish numeracy, as measured by the ABCC index, increases over the course of socioeco-nomic development (Figure 5.1). The scatterplot in Figure 5.2 shows a strong correlation between numeracy and literacy on a provincial level in Spain. ¹⁰ The development of numeracy coincides with an increase in primary school enrollment (Figure 5.3). How-ever, we observe stagnation in overall numeracy levels for those born in the 1840s and 1850s. After this point in time, there is a steady increase. Comparing these results with education data, we nd no decrease or stagnation in enrollment rates in the 1850s that could explain stagnating numeracy levels. The death of Fernando VII in 1833 marked the beginning of the liberal regime which carried out extensive educational reforms. Es-pecially after 1840, the number of public primary schools increased considerably. In the following, we will argue that the observed stagnation in numeracy may be attributed to the subsistence crises in 1847 and 1857 which had a negative impact on the educational level of the population through the channels we explained above.

The Spanish peninsula is characterized by dierences in climate, soils, social and eco-nomic conditions; therefore we also would expect numeracy levels to vary within the country. Trade oriented regions exhibited high levels of numeracy (Brown 2004), proba-bly because it would seem that people in trading regions would need to read, write, and calculate more frequently. This presumption is tested in the next section. Figures 5.4 and 5.5 show the distribution of numeracy in the Spanish provinces for the birth decades 1830 and 1900, with darker shaded areas indicating lower numeracy. Numeracy levels actually diered remarkably between the autonomous regions. The Communities of An-dalusia, Murcia, Extremadura, and Galicia had considerably lower levels than the rest of the country. We nd high numeracy levels (or low Whipple indices) in the communities of Asturias, Basque Country, Madrid, and Castile and Leon. These ndings correspond with

10Data on literacy stems from Carreras and Tafunell (2005) and is available for the birth decades 1860, 1870, 1880, and 1900.

Cipolla's (1969, p.83) who mentions a 'corridor of literacy' from Madrid towards Alava in the north. Studies by Vilanova and Moreno (1992) and Núñez (1990) show that regions with high literacy rates throughout the 19^th and 20^th century have been the northern provinces and the interior, regions with low literacy the southern provinces and Galicia.

The economically more dynamic regions in the north had lower age heaping than other regions, as well in the 1830s as at the turn of the 19^th century. A higher share of day laborers working on the latifundios may be responsible for more pronounced age heaping patterns in the southern part of Spain (Nuñez 1990).¹¹

The interior features relatively high ABCC indexes. The Basque, which were strongly involved in trade, also presented high numeracy levels. This result is interesting for two reasons: First, numeracy levels in the Basque Country in 1830 were already as high as they were eighty years later (!) in Galicia: In 1830 the average numeracy in the Basque Country was 95 percent, while average numeracy in Galicia was not at this value until 1910.¹² Second, estimations of literacy rates in 1860 do not yield such favorable results for the Basque. These results indicate that the eects of a dierent language likely played an important role when measuring literacy rates. Surprisingly, Cataluña, which became 'Spain's factory' in the second half of the 19^th century (Nadal 1985) shows only moderate numeracy levels. Rosés (1998) oers an interesting explanation for this. A great part of education took place informally in the plants; children entered the job market at age eight and a few years later they were able to supervise their own work group. This 'training-on-the-job' did not favor literacy or numeracy, but led to skilled industrial workers. In 1900, dierences between regions had become minor, although Andalusia and Galicia still had relatively low numeracy levels.

11Núñez (1993) nds that widespread analphabetism in the southern part of Spain led to low geographical and occupational mobility. Mainly the better educated from the north migrated to those regions where skilled workers were requested. Thus, migration is not responsible for lower educational levels in the south.

12For comparison: The overall ABCC index in Spain was at 88 in 1830 and at 98 in 1910. Numeracy data is available until the 1930s; however, we decided to focus mainly on the period until 1900 to study the eects of numeracy levels during the subsistence crises in detail.

5.6.2 The Subsistence Crises Puzzle

In a next step, we focus on the dynamic nature of the evolution of the ABCC index. We are especially interested in which provinces suered most during the subsistence crises of 1846/47 and 1856/57. To study this question, we plot the change in numeracy indexes from one decade to the next. All provinces which experienced a deterioration or stagnation of numeracy levels are colored dark grey. As Figure 5.6 shows, in the 1840s, most provinces experienced stagnation in numeracy levels in comparison with the 1830s. We have stated above that Spain suered a subsistence crisis and political problems during this period.

The bad harvest of wheat led to increasing grain prices, severe nutritional problems, and riots. During this time, numeracy levels deteriorated or stagnated in almost all provinces.

Those which experienced no stagnation in numeracy levels are predominantly allocated in the center.¹³ Interestingly, this region was specialized in wheat cultivation. This fact could lead to the assumption that, although wheat prices also raised in the interior, the increase was less pronounced than in other Spanish regions.¹⁴

However, when we look at the change in ABCC indexes for the birth cohorts born in the 1840s and 1850s (Figure 5.7), the reverse happened. While most coastal provinces could improve their performance in numeracy levels, the northern Meseta as well as the Balears experienced a decline or stagnation. Nevertheless, several authors (Núñez 1992, Moreno Lázaro 2001, p. 185) state that Castile and Leon developed very favorably economically in the second half of the 19^thcentury. Several events stand out in 1850's Spain. The Crimean war in 1853 led to a rise in wheat exports and therefore also to increasing domestic grain prices. The northern Meseta, Spain's granary, should have beneted from this situation.

But in 1856/57, again, a bad yield of wheat, stock and distribution problems (Sánchez-Albornoz 1963, p.99) caused a subsistence crisis. During both crises. starvation and excess mortality could be observed, especially among the lower social strata of the society (Díaz Marín 2003, 2007).

To shed more light on this, we verify what happened exactly during the subsistence

13Mainly Castilla la Mancha and Castile and Leon, in the following: the northern Meseta.

14In this context, we use the increase in wheat prices as an indicator for the severity of the crises.

crisis in the 1840s and 1850s by means of the model developed in section 5.4 of this paper. Nutritional intake declined during both subsistence crises due to a fall in regional wheat production. Nevertheless, if the same amount of food had been imported, there would have been no nutritional shortfalls. Coastal regions exhibited an advantage in terms of lower transportation costs for imports, but a disadvantage due to the fact they were located further away from home production. During both crises, after some riots, the Spanish authorities allowed to import wheat from abroad (Díaz Marín 2003). To a certain extent, this could reduce the adverse eects of the crisis. Nevertheless, as in the 'hungry forties' the whole of Europe experienced harvest problems, imports were small, therefore the coastal areas could not benet much from grain imports. In Castile and Leon, however, given the proximity to production, grain prices increased less.

In the 1850s, in contrast, grain imports from Europe could mitigate the bad harvest in some parts of the country. Net imports could rise and relieve the lower regional produc-tion especially in the easily accessible coastal areas of the peninsula. Castile and Leon's geographic situation in the mountainous inner part of the country rendered transportation more dicult, especially before the railway came, leading to a lower supply and higher wheat prices. Thus, nutritional problems were higher in the isolated interior provinces than in coastal regions. This explains a higher nutritional level of the interior in 1846/47, but a lower nutritional level during the subsistence crisis in 1856/57. Through the nutri-tion link presented above, the crisis may have had a negative eect on numeracy levels in Castile and Leon. It is very likely that schooling also declined during this time, even though enrollment rates show an increase in the number of children enrolled in primary schools. However, schooling statistics are usually comprised of all students registered at the beginning of the school year and not only of those who actually attended school. For this reason, numeracy levels as an outcome indicator oer a better possibility to judge educational progress or stagnation.

Our hypothesis is supported by the development of wheat prices, approximating the severity of the crises, in the considered decades. While in the 1840s wheat prices increased to higher levels in the coastal zones of Spain as compared to the interior, during the crisis

in the 1850s this relationship reversed. The percent increase in prices in the interior in the 1850s is 60 percent as compared to only 14 percent in the coastal zones (Figure 5.8).

This development explains also the increase in infant mortality rates in 1850s Central Spain (Sanz Gimeno and Ramiro Fariñas 2000, Figure 5.9) as well as a decrease in the biological standard of living measured by the average height of recruits in Castile and Leon born in this decade (Martínez-Carrión and Moreno-Lázaro 2007, Figure 10). Nutrition and the disease environment in the rst years after birth greatly inuence adult height.

The average height of recruits in Castile and Leon fell for the birth cohorts of 1856-1860 to a greater extent than in the rural South East. In the 1840s however, heights in the rural South East declined while they even improved in Castile and Leon. Thus, the data on the biological standard of living shows that Castile and Leon suered severe nutritional shortfalls during the subsistence crisis of 1856/57. In the 1840s, we cannot observe a similar decrease. From this evidence, we can deduce that the bad harvests in 1840s and 1850s Spain led to a fall in cognitive abilities because of protein-energy and micronutrient deciencies caused through malnutrition. Increasing grain prices led to declining household income (Díaz Marín 2007) as reected by lower heights of recruits.

Child labor possibly increased leading to lower school attendance.