Authors: Francisco J Marco-Gracia (Universidad de Zaragoza and Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón), Víctor A Luque de Haro (Universidad de Almería and Centro de Investigación Mediterráneo de Economía y Desarrollo Sostenible) and Pablo Delgado (Universidad de Zaragoza and Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón)
In early-twentieth-century urban Spain, family structure had long-lasting consequences. Using longitudinal data from Zaragoza, we show that men who grew up in households without a male breadwinner had lower biological well-being, were more likely to report health problems at age 21, and died earlier than those raised in male-breadwinner households.
Family structure and inequality in early-twentieth-century Spain
How much did it matter to grow up in a household without a male breadwinner? Historians and social scientists have long argued that early-life conditions shape later-life outcomes. But the role of household structure has often been harder to identify, especially in historical settings.
Our article addresses this question using longitudinal data for men born between 1886 and 1908 in Zaragoza, one of Spain’s major urban centers during the age of industrialization. We link household information from the 1924 population list to military conscription records and mortality data, allowing us to follow individuals from the family setting in which they lived to their physical condition at age 21 and, ultimately, to their lifespan.
The focus is not on the male breadwinner model as an ideal or a moral norm. Instead, we use it in a practical sense: whether a household had an adult male figure who acted as its main breadwinner. In many cases, the absence of such a figure reflected widowhood, disability, or long-term unemployment rather than deliberate deviation from prevailing norms. This makes household structure a useful lens through which to study vulnerability and inequality in urban Spain.
Men from non-breadwinner households faced lasting disadvantages
The results are clear. Men who grew up in households without a male breadwinner experienced worse outcomes across the life course.
First, they showed lower biological well-being, measured by height. Height is not simply a physical trait: in historical populations, it is widely understood as a summary indicator of net nutrition and disease exposure during childhood and adolescence. In our study, men from non-breadwinner households were shorter on average almost 1 cm shorter than those raised in households with a male breadwinner.
Second, they were more likely to report health problems at the time of military conscription, around age 21. These problems included both mild and severe physical conditions and point to a broader health penalty associated with growing up in a more economically fragile household environment.
Third, the disadvantage extended into later life. Men raised outside the male breadwinner model died earlier on average and faced a higher mortality risk over the life course. T
Taken together, these findings suggest that family structure was deeply connected to life chances in early-twentieth-century urban Spain. The household in which a person grew up shaped not only childhood well-being, but also adult health and survival.
Why did the absence of a male breadwinner matter?
Several mechanisms likely help explain these results.
A first mechanism is household income. In a context where many working-class families lived close to subsistence, the absence of a male breadwinner often meant lower and more unstable resources. That could affect the quantity and quality of food available to children, their housing conditions, and their exposure to illness.
A second mechanism is the organization of care. If a mother had to compensate for the absence or incapacity of the main male earner, the household may have faced sharper time constraints and greater stress. In such settings, children could receive less care, less supervision, and fewer resources.
A third mechanism is early labor participation. In vulnerable households, children may have entered the labor market earlier or contributed to family survival in ways that reduced schooling and increased physical strain. Even if these channels cannot always be observed directly in the surviving records, they are consistent with the patterns we find in height, health, and longevity.
The point is not that every household without a male breadwinner was the same. Rather, in a society structured by strong gendered labor roles and unequal wages, the absence of a main male provider often increased the risk of material and biological disadvantage.
A contribution to current debates
These findings speak to debates that extend well beyond historical Spain. Today, discussions of family change often focus on contemporary inequality, health gaps, and social mobility. Our article shows that these connections have deep historical roots.
The case of Zaragoza suggests that family structure mattered not only because it reflected social norms, but because it shaped access to nutrition, care, stability, and opportunity. This is especially important for economic historians, because it shifts attention away from average trends and toward inequalities within cities during industrialization. Urban growth did not benefit everyone in the same way. Some households remained especially exposed to insecurity, and the effects could persist over an entire lifetime.
More broadly, the article contributes to the literature on health inequality by showing that disadvantage accumulated across the life course. Lower biological well-being, worse health at age 21, and shorter lifespan were connected outcomes, not isolated events. In that sense, the history of the male breadwinner model is also part of the history of inequality of opportunity.
Family structure, then, was not a minor background characteristic. In early-twentieth-century urban Spain, it helped shape who grew well, who stayed healthier, and who lived longer.