NURSING BABIES TO FIGHT POVERTY: WAGES OF WET NURSES OF SPANISH FOUNDLING HOSPITALS IN THE 18^THAND 19^THCENTURIES

Abstract

Foundling hospitals spread across Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, taking in hundreds of thousands of children each year. In Spain, the hospitals of major cities had staffs of more than 1,000 external wet nurses, who worked mainly in rural localities. Their cash wages were key for the household economies of the poor rural and urban populations. This article presents a methodology to interpret wet-nurse wages and explains their utility with respect to other occupations for men and women. Our results include a series of nominal and real wages for wet nurses and a calculation of their contributions to family income. The level of wages these institutions could offer was a major determinant in the supply of wet-nurse labour.

Careworn: The Economic History of Caring Labor

“…Most importantly, the time and effort put into childcare must be valued, including the vital task of suckling. Breastfeeding was historically regarded as work (Shepard 1017); indeed, it formed the basis of a flourishing cottage industry in Britain, Europe, and the United States (Fildes 1982; Sarasúa 2021; Sarasúa, Erdozáin, and Hernándes 2023; Rhodes 2015). Study of this commercialized service provides data on the time spent in and the payment for wet nursing: the raw materials for an analogous computation of the value of unpaid (maternal) nursing, my next research project.…”