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El Salvador Urbanization
In general, urbanization in El Salvador was stimulated by the
success of coffee as an export crop and the growth and
transformation of the wealthy coffee elite from a nineteenthcentury rural gentry into a twentieth-century national elite. The
political and economic dominance of the coffee oligarchy was
particularly responsible for the growth of the San Salvador
metropolitan area and, to a lesser extent, that of El Salvador's
second city, Santa Ana. During the nineteenth century, in fact,
Santa Ana, situated in the heart of the coffee region, was the
largest city in El Salvador. Both Santa Ana in the west and San
Miguel in the east started as agricultural towns and regional
centers; over time, both developed small industrial bases and
commercial and service establishments.
Both these cities, however, were overshadowed by the growth
of San Salvador. Over the years, especially during export
agriculture "boom" periods, a portion of the earnings made by the
elite was used to develop and support San Salvador as a modern
urban center, using European and then North American models as a
guide. Municipal services, communications, and transportation
infrastructures were established to support the agricultural
export trade. Small manufacturing and food-processing
establishments developed, along with fledgling construction,
commercial, and transport activities. A small middle class of
civilian and military public employees, commercial middlemen, and
small businessmen emerged. Educational, health, and welfare
services were instituted, and urban workers, students, and
artisans were allowed, within limits, to organize mutual aid
associations, such as cooperatives, savings associations, and
clubs, and to present grievances before the government.
Urban migration appealed to some members of the rural sector
more than others. Persons leaving the northern departments were
drawn to urban areas in large numbers. In addition, the capital,
which attracted more than 90 percent of urban migrants, generally
offered greater employment opportunities and better pay to women
than to men, encouraging a relatively high percentage of women to
trade rural for urban life. In the countryside, government
regulations either restricted labor opportunities for women or
compensated them at a lower rate. Similarly, income derivable
from rural women's traditional handicraft production declined in
the face of competition from urban manufactured goods; as a
result, these traditional handicraft items were devalued both
literally and figuratively. Partially as a result of such
pressures, 44 percent of the urban labor force was female by
1975, compared with only 14 percent of the rural labor force. In
fact, however, the participation of women in the rural work force
probably was larger because many women effectively worked without
pay during coffee or cotton harvests. Only men or heads of
household officially contracted to provide labor, although women
and children might work in men's crews. Thus, only men had a
right to weekly payment, and only men had the legal right to a
daily food allowance. When women were paid, their wages generally
were one-third less than men's.
Stated differently, two-thirds of female workers in 1975 were
employed in urban areas, predominantly in San Salvador; they
worked at a wide variety of low-skill jobs characterized by low
pay, long hours, and a lack of benefits or legal protections. The
most common of these occupations was work as domestics in upperand middle-class households and as street vendors, even though
vending was against the law and vendors faced police harassment.
Some women also found jobs in factories in the free-zone area of
the capital, where North American-owned pharmaceutical and
textile factories preferred to hire women because they were
thought to be more reliable workers than men
(see Foreign Economic Relations
, ch. 3). Many women, especially the least
educated, engaged in prostitution.
Data as of November 1988
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