Las condiciones de vida durante el primer franquismo. El caso de las Islas Baleares

Abstract

From 1939 to 1951 the majority of the inhabitants of the Balearic Islands suffered a sharp decline in standards of living, which seems surprising when taking into account the relative economic boom of the previous decades and the reduced impact of the 1936-1939 war on the production system. Using a varied range of sources, particularly reports from the National Institute of Statistics, the Civil Government, the regional Parliament, Chambers of Commerce, the regional Falange headquarters and a number of municipal governments, a series of variables such as the unfavourable price-income relationship, the increase in levels of economic corruption, and the decline of basic daily supplies, health provision, housing and education have been analysed. The peculiar production system of the Balearic Islands, characterized at that time by the predominance of the consumer goods industry and export of agricultural produce, is one of the main reasons explaining the far-reaching effects of the general post-war economic crisis on to the Balearic archipelago.