"The labor market always rewards women below the salary received by men; this is true even in the same work, with identical professions and dedications and with the same academic degree program ". Elvira Martínez Chacón, professor of World and Spanish Economics at the University of Navarra, referred to the labor status of women during the conference on "Implications of social change in the family" held at the University of Navarra.

"Unemployment affects, above all, women, which is causing changes in the contractual modalities," she pointed out. " part-time contracts, if they are not imposed but respond to the will of women, are a good opportunity to respond to the need to make work compatible with home care. And, at the same time, some innovations in social legislation can lead to a better distribution of family obligations and a desirable improvement in equal opportunities.

Elvira Martínez Chacón acknowledged that "it is not yet possible to evaluate the effects of the most recent measures, although it can be said that they will increase the presence of women in the labor market and reduce the gap that still separates the salaries they receive from those received by their male work".

The professor at the University of Navarra stressed, however, the growing presence of women in the labor market. "Spain is thus following the guideline of the countries around us, although it is doing so with a certain delay. This has been possible thanks to a sociological change that has encouraged women to join paid activities and to the improvement in incomes which, on the one hand, has made it possible to increase women's educational levels and, on the other, has extended the schooling age and freed them from part of their family obligations".

Prestigious professions in the 20th century

Another of the speakers, Carolina Montoro, professor of Geography at the University of Navarra, presented part of the results of the research project "Family and Social Change. Study of social change in Spain", which has been carried out by the Institute of Family Sciences of the University of Navarra and is based on the 1991 Sociodemographic survey . The professor analyzed, in particular, the social change produced in Spain taking as reference letter the indicators of the social position of the parents, that is, the level programs of study, the social prestige, the status of work and the social class .

"The higher the social class , the higher the level programs of study," he noted. "In this sense, the universalization of Education has not changed this trend over time."

Carolina Montoro highlighted the changes that have taken place in the cultural models of reference letter. "At the beginning of the century, the teaching profession had a high social prestige, but from the 1930s onwards, engineers began to be more highly valued by society". He also commented that there has also been a change in the business mentality, "because before, the businessman was satisfied with having first Degree programs of study , and then he realized that to be successful he had to acquire higher academic training ".

The University of Navarra professor affirmed that "labor autonomy has been losing importance as an element that shapes prestige, while the power of management over other people's work has assumed the highest prestige values. This explains why society values the large entrepreneur more than the small one".

Lastly, Montoro alluded to the "clear segregation between the rural and urban worlds in terms of prestige, level programs of study, work status and social class of its inhabitants. It is in the city where the highest levels of the various indicators are concentrated.