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7 - The service sector

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Joseph Harrison
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
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Summary

The service sector, also known as the ‘tertiary’ or ‘residual’ sector, has long been a Cinderella subject within the sphere of economic investigation. In Spain, as elsewhere, despite the growing importance of services in recent decades, there have been few detailed and comprehensive studies. Scholarly research in contemporary Spanish economic history has tended to focus on the shift from agriculture to industry.

In global terms, the process of rapid tertiary expansion got under way in the United States after 1945. Subsequently, other industrialised nations followed the American pattern, often with a significant time lag. In 1968, the economist Victor Fuchs coined the phrase ‘service economy’ to describe a situation where more than half of a country's labour force was employed in activities other than farming, forestry, fisheries, mining and manufacturing (Fuchs, 1968).

Using Fuchs's criteria, Spain can be said to have joined the ranks of the world's service economies in 1981. At the beginning of the present decade, the OECD average for employment in the service sector was 62 per cent. In certain countries, including Great Britain, Belgium, the United States, Canada and Australia, the proportion was as high as 70 per cent. By comparison, Spain trailed several percentage points behind. According to Juan Ramón Cuadrado, in 1990, 54.2 per cent of the Spanish working population was engaged in the various pursuits which together comprise the tertiary sector, among them commerce, transport, tourism, financial services, education, health and social services.

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Chapter
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The Spanish Economy
From the Civil War to the European Community
, pp. 49 - 52
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1995

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  • The service sector
  • Joseph Harrison, University of Manchester
  • Book: The Spanish Economy
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139171021.008
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  • The service sector
  • Joseph Harrison, University of Manchester
  • Book: The Spanish Economy
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139171021.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The service sector
  • Joseph Harrison, University of Manchester
  • Book: The Spanish Economy
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139171021.008
Available formats
×