Share:


Explaining the rising precariat in Spain

    Elena de la Poza   Affiliation
    ; Lucas Jodar   Affiliation
    ; Paloma Merello   Affiliation
    ; Adrián Todoli-Signes   Affiliation

Abstract

Spanish GDP indicator figures recover while the risk of poverty has not stopped increasing since 2007 given the continuous austerity policies adopted by Governments, while labour and welfare conditions have worsened. A new phenomenon is emerging: the flattening of the Spanish middle class.


This study proposes a model to quantify the number of individuals according to their level of precariousness in Spain. The model allows us to predict the behaviour of society in Spain given the mimetic nature of humans by constructing a discrete finite epidemiological model that classifies and quantifies the population in Spain according to its risk of precariousness. Our results show a rise in the precariat of 3% (representing 39% of the total population at the end of the study).


The relevance of this study lies in providing measures to governments that can mitigate the negative effects of this problem and stop its growth. Indeed tax measures to help firms to distribute their profits among employees and measures engaging a labour reform to establish limits to the rate of temporary jobs and working overtime should be considered.

Keyword : economy, technology, labour, modelling, precariat, risk, society, Spain, wages

How to Cite
de la Poza, E., Jodar, L., Merello, P., & Todoli-Signes, A. (2020). Explaining the rising precariat in Spain. Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 26(1), 165-185. https://doi.org/10.3846/tede.2020.11332
Published in Issue
Jan 24, 2020
Abstract Views
2101
PDF Downloads
681
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

References

Acemoglu, D., & Autor, D. (2011). Skills, tasks and technologies: Implications for employment and earnings. In Handbook of labor economics (Vol. 4, pp. 1043-1171). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-7218(11)02410-5

Andrés, R. (2018, June 12). La otra dramática cara del ‘boom’ del alquiler: mayores con pensiones bajas. La Vanguardia. Retrieved from https://www.lavanguardia.com/local/valencia/20180612/444152184736/boom-alquileres-personas-mayores-pensiones-bajas-hogares-compartidos-valencia.html (in Spanish)

Arntz, M., Gregory, T., & Zierahn, U. (2016). The risk of automation for jobs in OECD countries: A comparative analysis (Working papers No. 189). OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/5jlz9h56dvq7-en

Barbieri, P. (2009). Flexible employment and inequality in Europe. European Sociological Review, 25(6), 621-628. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcp020

Bentley, R., Baker, E., & Aitken, Z. (2019). The ‘double precarity’ of employment insecurity and unaffordable housing and its impact on mental health. Social Science & Medicine, 225, 9-16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.02.008

Bericat, E., & Cascales-Mira, M. (2019). Job quality. In E. Bericat, & M. L. Jiménez-Rodrigo (Eds.), The quality of European societies (Vol. 75). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05023-8

Blasco Gascó, F. (2018). Código civil: 22ª edición 2018 anotada y concordada. Valencia (in Spanish).

Blázquez, P. (2018, June 28). ¿Por qué España puede permitirse subir por fin los salarios? La Vanguardia. Retrieved from https://www.lavanguardia.com/economia/20180628/45445735936/salariosempleo-productividad.html (in Spanish).

Brady, D., & Biegert, T. (2017). The rise of precarious employment in Germany. In A. L. Kalleberg, & S. P. Vallas (Eds.), Precarious work (Vol. 31, pp. 245-271). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0277-283320170000031008

Business Council for Competitiveness. (2014). España 2018. Retrieved from http://www.spainfinancialcentre.com/sites/default/files/20141103_informe_espana_2018.pdf (in Spanish).

Čábelková, I. (2015). The effect of social transfers on the level of unemployment of disabled in EU countries. Economics & Sociology, 8(1), 298-307. https://doi.org/10.14254/2071-789x.2015/8-1/23

Christakis, N. A., & Fowler, J. H. (2009). Connected: the surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives. Boston, Massachussets, USA: Little Brown and Company.

Charlwood, A., Forde, C., Grugulis, I., Hardy, K., Kirkpatrick, I., MacKenzie, R., & Stuart, M. (2014). Clear, rigorous and relevant: publishing quantitative research articles in Work, employment and society, Work, Employment and Society, 28(2), 155-167. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017014526448

Clarke, J., & Newman, J. (2012). The alchemy of austerity. Critical Social Policy, 32, 299-319. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018312444405

Costas, A. (2018, September 9). Por qué los muy ricos progresan y los demás no. El País. Retrieved from https://elpais.com/economia/2018/09/07/actualidad/1536333591_827747.html (in Spanish)

Damasio, A. (2018). The strange order of things: life, feelings, and the making of cultures. Barcelona, Spain: Planeta (in Spanish).

Dedios-Pleite, P. (2019, February 11). Es un mito pensar que la robotización va a sustituir puestos de trabajo. La Vanguardia. Retrieved from https://www.lavanguardia.com/economia/innovacion/20190210/46294662888/pascual-dedios-pleite-mito-robotizacion-sustituir-trabajo.html (in Spanish)

De la Poza, E., & Jódar, L. (2018). A short-term population model of the suicide risk: the case of Spain. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 42(4), 800-820. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-018-9589-4

De la Poza, E., Jódar, L., & Pricop, A. (2017). Modelling and analysing voting behaviour: the case of the Spanish general elections. Applied Economics, 49(13), 1287-1297. https://doi.org/10.1080/00036846.2016.1217307

Doogan, K. (2009). New capitalism? The transformation of work. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Drahokoupil, J., & Fabo, B. (2016). The platform economy and the disruption of the employment relationship (ETUI policy brief No. 5/2016). Brussels. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2809517

Dudek, H., & Lisicka, I. (2013). Determinants of poverty-binary logit model with interaction terms approach. Ekonometria, 3(41), 65-77.

Esteve, F. (2018). La amenaza de la robotización del empleo en España. Retrieved from http://www.forumlibertas.com/la-amenaza-de-la-robotizacion-del-empleo-en-espana/ (in Spanish)

Eurostat. (2018). Involuntary part-time employment as percentage of the total part-time employment for young people by sex and age. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-datasets/-/YTH_EMPL_080

Eurostat. (2016). Income Inequality in the EU. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/EDN-20180426-1

Felgueroso, F., Millán, A., & Torres, M. (2018). Población especialmente vulnerable ante el empleo en España. Cuantificación y caracterización. Estudios sobre la Economía Española, 2017. FEDEA, Madrid. Retrieved from http://documentos.fedea.net/pubs/eee/eee2017-07.pdf (in Spanish)

Fischhoff, B., & Kadvany, J. (2011). Risk: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199576203.001.0001

Foundation Secretariado Gitano. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.gitanos.org/que-hacemos/areas/empleo_y_formacion_profesional/en_cifras.html

Foundation Instituto Edad y Vida. (2016). La revolución de la longevidad y su influencia en las necesidades de financiación de los mayores. Retrieved from https://www.edad-vida.org/publicaciones/la-revolucion-de-la-longevidad-y-su-influencia-en-las-necesidades-de-financiacion-de-los-mayores/ (in Spanish)

Funcas. (2018). Previsiones económicas para España 2019-2021. Retrieved from https://www.funcas.es/Indicadores/Indicadores.aspx?Id=1 (in Spanish)

Fuster, N., Arundel, R., & Susino, J. (2019). From a culture of homeownership to generation rent: housing discourses of young adults in Spain. Journal of Youth Studies, 22(5), 585-603. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2018.1523540

Galston, W. A. (2018, March 8). Order from chaos. The rise of European populism and the collapse of the center-left. Brookings. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/03/08/the-rise-of-european-populism-and-the-collapse-of-the-center-left/

General Council of the Judiciary. (2018, June 1). Judgment of Labor Court n 6 of Valencia n244/2018. Retrieved from https://www.isdc.ch/media/1590/13-juzgado-valencia-1-junio.pdf (in Spanish)

Girard, R. (2008). Mimesis and theory: essays on literature and criticism, 1953–2005. Stanford University Press.

Goldthorpe, J. H. (2016). Sociology as a population science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316412565

Gómez, M. V. (2019, February 15). Precariedad laboral: La inspección detecta en solo un año casi 19.000 falsos autónomos. El País. Retrieved from https://elpais.com/economia/2019/02/15/actualidad/1550263791_159238.html (in Spanish)

Goos, M. A., Manning, A., & Salomons, A. (2014). Explaining job polarization: routine-biased technological change and offshoring. The American Economic Review, 104(8), 2509-2526. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.104.8.2509

Haddad, W. M., Chellaboina, V., & Nersesov, S. G. (2002). Hybrid nonnegative and compartmental dynamical systems. Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 8(6), 493-515. https://doi.org/10.1080/1024123021000066426

Hawksworth, J., Berriman, R., & Goel, S. (2018). Will robots really steal our jobs? An international analysis of the potential long-term impact of automation. Retrieved from https://www.pwc.com/hu/hu/kiadvanyok/assets/pdf/impact_of_automation_on_jobs.pdf

Hornstein, A., Krusell, P., & Violante, G.L. (2005). The effects of technical change on labour market inequalities. In P. Aghion, & S. N. Durlauf (Eds.), Handbook of economic growth. Elsevier B.V. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1574-0684(05)01020-8

International Labor Organization. (2017). Talking through the crisis: Social dialogue and industrial relations trends in selected EU countries. Retrieved from https://www.ilo.org/global/publications/books/WCMS_548950/lang--en/index.htm

International Monetary Fund. (2018). Retrieved from www.imf.com

Kalinowski, S., & Kiełbasa, B. (2017). Risk of poverty and social exclusion in the European Union in the context of sustainable development. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 8th international scientific conference rural development 2017, Aleksandras Stulginskis University, Lithuania. https://doi.org/10.15544/RD.2017.044

Kemp, S., & Holmwood, J. (2003). Realism, regularity and social explanation. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 33(2), 165-187. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5914.00212

Kiersztyn, A. (2017). Non-standard employment and subjective insecurity: how can we capture job precarity using survey data? In A. L. Kalleberg, & S. P. Vallas (Eds.), Precarious work (Research in the Sociology of Work, Vol. 31). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0277-283320170000031003

Krusell, P. L., Ohanian, E., Rios-Rull, J. V., & Violante, G. L. (2000). Capital-skill complementarity and inequality: a macroeconomic analysis. Econometrica, 68(5), 1029-1054. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0262.00150

Lapuente, V. (2015). El retorno de los chamanes. Peninsula, Barcelona (in Spanish).

León-Castro, E., Merigó, J. M., Avilés-Ochoa, E., Gil-Lafuente, A. M., & Herrera-Viedma, E. (2019). Modelling and simulation in business, economics and management. Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 25(4), 571-575. https://doi.org/10.3846/tede.2019.9365

Loren, E. (2018, July 23). Sánchez elevará el salario mínimo a 1.000 euros en 2020. Huffington Post. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.es/2018/07/23/sanchez-elevara-el-salario-minimo-a1-000-euros-en-2020_a_23487907/ (in Spanish)

Martínez García, J. S. (2013). Estructura social y desigualdad en España. Madrid: Los Libros de la Catarata (in Spanish).

Micklethwait, J., & Wooldridge, A. (2014). The fourth revolution. The global race to reinvent the state. New York: The Penguin Press.

Muñoz de Bustillo Llorente, R., & Pinto Hernández, F. (2016). Reducing precarious work in Europe through social dialogue: the case of Spain (Report for the European Commission). University of Salamanca. Retrieved from http://www.research.mbs.ac.uk/ewerc/Our-research/Current-projects/Reducing-Precarious-Work-in-Europe-through-Social (in Spanish).

Nachtwey, O. (2017). La sociedad del descenso. Madrid: Paidos (in Spanish).

OECD. (2018a). Statistics. Labor force Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/oecd-labour-force-statistics_23083387

OECD. (2018b). Preparing for the future of work. Job Creation and Local Economic Development. OECD Publishing, Paris. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264305342-en

Olsen, W., & Morgan, J. (2005). A critical epistemology of analytical statistics: addressing the sceptical realist. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 35(3), 255-284. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5914.2005.00279.x

Opinno. (2018). Informe ADDECO sobre el futuro laboral en España. Retrieved from https://www.ceu.es/joblab/documentacion/informeAdecco.pdf (in Spanish)

Oxfam Intermón. (2018). ¿Realidad o Ficción? La recuperación económica, en manos de una minoría. Retrieved from https://oxfamintermon.s3.amazonaws.com/sites/default/files/documentos/files/recuperacion-economica-una-minoria.pdf (in Spanish)

Pęciak, R., & Tusińska, M. (2015). The fight against poverty in the European Union–expectations versus reality. Journal of International Studies, 8(2), 8-2. https://doi.org/10.14254/2071-8330.2015/8-2/10

Pellicer, L. (2017). Spain’s new real estate boom: the rental market. El País. Madrid. Retrieved from https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/07/03/inenglish/1499075153_385634.html

Pesole, A., Urzí Brancati, M. C., Fernández-Macías, E., Biagi, F., & González Vázquez, I. (2018). Platform Workers in Europe. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.

Pratt, G. A. (2015). Is a Cambrian Explosion coming for robotics? The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29(3), 51-60. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.29.3.51

Raafat, R. M., Chater, N., & Frith, C. (2009). Herding in humans. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(10), 420-428. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2009.08.002

Ramió, C. (2018). Cifras sobre el potencial impacto de la robotización en las Administraciones Públicas. Retrieved from https://www.administracionpublica.com/cifras-sobre-el-potencial-impacto-de-la-robotizacion-en-las-administraciones-publicas/ (in Spanish)

Real Instituto Elcano. (2018) Retrieved from http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/portal/rielcano_es/contenido?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/elcano/elcano_es/zonas_es/demografia+y+poblacion/ari6-2018-gonzalezenriquez-martinezromera-debilidades-emigracion-espana (in Spanish)

Rifkin, J. (2011). The zero marginal cost society. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Rodríguez-Piñero, M., & Hernández-Bejarano, M. (2017). Economía colaborativa y trabajo de plataforma. Bomarzo, Albacete (in Spanish).

Rubery, J., Grimshaw, D., Keizer, A., & Johnson, M. (2018). Challenges and contradictions in the ‘normalising’ of precarious work. Work, Employment and Society, 32(3), 509-5527. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017017751790

Sánchez-Silva, C. (2019, January 18). Las empresas pisan el acelerador de los ERE. El País. Retrieved from https://elpais.com/economia/2019/01/18/actualidad/1547807569_677451.html (in Spanish)

Sassen, S. (2014). Expulsions: brutality and complexity in the global economy. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674369818

Slavkova, M. (2008, December). Being gypsy in Europe. The case of Bulgarian Roma workers in Spain. Balkanologie, XI, 1-2.

Srnicek, N. (2017). Platform capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Standing, G. (2012). The precariat. The new dangerous class. London: Bloomsbury.

Sociological Research Center. (2018). Retrieved from http://www.cis.es/cis/opencms/ES/index.html (in Spanish)

Spanish Chamber of Commerce. (2018). Perfil del emprendedor. Retrieved from https://www.camara.es/blog/creacion-de-empresas/perfil-del-emprendedor-espanol (in Spanish)

Spanish National Statistics Institute. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.ine.es

Spanish National Statistics Institute. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.ine.es

Spanish National Statistics Institute. (2017). Retrieved from http://www.ine.es

Spanish National Statistics Institute. (2018). Retrieved from http://www.ine.es

Spanish Ministry of Labour and Social Security. (2017a). Trabajadores autónomos, personas físicas, en alta en la Seguridad Social, resumen de resultados a 31 de diciembre de 2017. Retrieved from http://www.mitramiss.gob.es/es/sec_trabajo/autonomos/economia-soc/autonomos/estadistica/2017/4trim/Publicacion_RESUMEN_DE_RESULTADOS_DICIEMBR_2017.pdf (in Spanish)

Spanish Ministry of Labour and Social Security. (2017b). Pensiones de la Seguridad Social, diciembre 2017. Retrieved from http://www.seg-social.es/wps/portal/wss/internet/EstadisticasPresupuestosEstudios/Estadisticas/EST23/EST24/EST192 (in Spanish)

Spanish Ministry of Labour and Social Security. (2017c). Retrieved from http://www.mitramiss.gob.es/es/sec_emi/index.htm

Spanish Ministry of Health. (2015). Encuesta sobre alcohol y otras drogas en España, EDADES. Retrieved from http://www.pnsd.msssi.gob.es/profesionales/sistemasInformacion/sistemaInformacion/encuestas_EDADES.htm

Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. (2017). Datos y cifras. Curso escolar 2017/2018. Retrieved from http://www.educacionyfp.gob.es/servicios-al-ciudadano-mecd/dms/mecd/serviciosal-ciudadano-mecd/estadisticas/educacion/indicadores-publicaciones-sintesis/datos-cifras/Datosycifras1718esp.pdf (in Spanish)

Spitz-Oener, A. (2006). Technical change, job tasks, and rising educational demands: looking outside the wage structure. Journal of Labor Economics, 24, 235-270. https://doi.org/10.1086/499972

Symeonaki, M., Parsanoglou, D., & Stamatopoulou, G. (2019). The evolution of early job insecurity in Europe. SAGE Open, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019845187

Todolí Signes, A. (2015). El impacto de la “Uber economy” en las relaciones laborales: Los efectos de las plataformas virtuales en el contrato de trabajo. Luslabor, 3, 1-25.

Todolí Signes, A. (2016). Salarios y productividad. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch.

Todolí Signes, A. (2017a). El trabajo en la era de la economía colaborativa. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch.

Todolí Signes, A. (2017b). El bonus salarial. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch.

Wilkinson, R. G. (2005, January). The impact of inequality: how to make sick societies healthier. New York: The New Press.