· This is the result ofthe study ´Analysis of the socio-economic impact of the values and principlesof the Social Economy in Spain´, presented by CEPES, which aims to make visibleand quantify the differential contribution that the Social Economy makes tosociety, measuring its impact on employment and territorial cohesion.
· This study answersthree questions: Do Social Economy enterprises and entities behave differentlyfrom commercial enterprises? If so, what benefits does this differentialbehavior translate into for society as a whole? And, finally, what is theimpact of these benefits in monetary terms?
· To answer thesequestions, 10,291 Social Economy entities (4,751 in the market or business sub-sector of the Social Economy) and 33,409employed persons (15,814 in the Social Market Economy) have been identifiedfrom the Continuous Sample of Working Lives and compared with a Control Groupof similar companies and market jobs.
· The methodologicaldevelopment of the Study is widely supported in the scientific and policyevaluation community, having been published by the United Nations as a workingdocument and by the OECD as an example of good practice in social impactmeasurement.
· If the market orbusiness sub-sector of the Social Economy were to behave like the marketeconomy in its recruitment policy, 181,000 jobs occupied by groups withemployability difficulties would be lost.
· In relation to themonetary value of the contribution of the principles of the Social MarketEconomy, the study reveals that the values of Social Economy companies andentities contribute 11,026 million euros per year to society, almost 5,000million more than in 2019.
· The complete report isavailable
· The report´s executivesummary is available:
Madrid,29 December 2023.- The study ´Analysis of thesocio-economic impact of the values and principles of the Social Economy inSpain´, presented by the Spanish Social Economy Business Confederation(CEPES) confirms the greater presence of the Social Economy in rural areasand intermediate cities and with greater resilience in job destruction.
ThePresident of CEPES, Juan Antonio Pedreño, stresses that the methodologyof this study is an international pioneer and has wide support in thescientific and policy evaluation community, recalling that it has beenpublished by the United Nations as a working document and by the OECD as anexample of good practice in the measurement of social impact. He recalled thatthe report answered three questions: do Social Economy enterprises behavedifferently from commercial enterprises? If so, how do these differences affectsociety? And finally, how can these effects be measured in monetary units?
Toanswer these questions, 10,291 Social Economy entities (4,751 in themarket Social Economy) and 33,409 employed people (15,814 in the marketSocial Economy) were identified from the Continuous Sample of Working Lives andcompared with a Control Group of companies and jobs in a similarproportion.
TheSocial Economy in Spain has more than 43,000 companies, 2.5 million jobs anda turnover of 10% of the Spanish GDP.
Thisreport has been co-financed by CEPES, the Ministry of Labour andSocial Economy, and the Cajamar Cooperative Group and carried out byAbay Analistas through official sources.
THE SOCIAL ECONOMY HAS A DECISIVE WEIGHT INTERRITORIAL COHESION
Theanalysis confirms the greater relative presence of the Social Economy in ruralareas and intermediate cities and its significant contribution to the creationof activity and employment in them, to the competitiveness of local economiesand to the fixation of population in this area.
1. The Social Economy is mainly located in municipalities with less than40,000 inhabitants, especially the marketSocial Economy. In the case of commercial enterprises, these percentages arereversed and both they and their workers are mainly located in large cities.
2. The location of the Social Economy by geographical area has importanteffects on the rural economy as a significant part of it is linked to the ruraleconomy.
A. Creation of activity and employment.
B. The contribution of the Social Economy to intermediate cities andrural areas is also channeled through entrepreneurship. In fact, 43.5% ofthe youngest the market or business sub-sector of the Social Economy enterprisesare in rural areas or intermediate cities (35.8% in the total economy withoutthe public sector).
C. The sectoral distribution of Social Economy enterprises alsoshows a greater dispersion by sector, thus favoring the diversification of therural economy, an aspect of great importance for its competitiveness.
D. It improves the competitiveness of rural economies through thedevelopment of certain branches that enable better use to be made ofpotentialities or provide an offer of social and educational services that isvital to halt the loss of population.
Thanksto the maintenance of the principles of the Social Economy, as opposed to analternative scenario in which they would have to make their location decisionsas commercial companies do, around 74,000 jobs are maintained inrural areas and some 192,000 people are prevented from moving to urban areas.
THE SOCIAL ECONOMY IN THE SPANISH PRODUCTIVE FABRIC
Thereport highlights how during the period 2017-2021, which was marked by thestrong negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Spanish economy and thestart of economic recovery in 2021, the performance of the social economy wasmore positive than that of the total economy, not including the public sector.In terms of employment, it gained relative weight in almost all the autonomouscommunities and in most sectors of activity.
Thisstudy includes in its ´Chapter I´ a development of the Spanish productivefabric, which reveals that 6.3 out of every 100 organizations in the privatesector of the Spanish economy belong to the Social Economy, 0.3 more than thedata obtained in the 2019 study.
Aboutthe development of the Social Economy by autonomous community, the studyreflects very significant differences. It highlights the high level ofdevelopment in Ceuta, Melilla, Castile-La Mancha, Navarre, the Basque Countryand Murcia. On the other hand, themodel still has employment levels lower than expected, considering its size andeconomic dynamism, in the Community of Madrid, the Balearic Islands and theCanary Islands.
Aboutthe presence of the Social Economy in the different economic sectors,the study specifies that, although it is present in all economic sectors, thisbusiness model has a relevant weight in the care and other social servicessector (43%), in the culture and leisure sector (35.2%), in education (26%), inagriculture (12.8%) and in the energy and water sector (10.9%).
THE SOCIAL ECONOMY CONTRIBUTES TO INCLUSIVE GROWTH ANDTHE REDUCTION OF INEQUALITIES
"Thebehavior of Social Economy enterprises and organizations is different from thebehavior of commercial enterprises, and results in more inclusive economicgrowth, which provides greater stability and significantly reducesinequalities. Moreover, they are companies with a strong commitment to theterritory, which makes an important contribution to social cohesion andterritorial cohesion," said Pedreño.
Theeffects on social cohesion reflected in the study focus on four areas:employment of groups with difficulties in accessing employment, employmentstability, equal opportunities, and the provision of care, education and watermanagement services.
Theresults obtained confirm the existence of a differential behavior thatgenerates social value through:
1. Inclusive job creation. The Social Economy incorporates, to amuch greater extent than the commercial economy, groups of workers withspecific difficulties in accessing employment, such as women over 45, peopleover 55, people with disabilities, people in a situation or at risk of socialexclusion and people with low qualifications. This greater presence isreflected in the Social Market Economy (27.7% of the total workforce comparedto 22.1% in commercial companies).
2. Higher levels of employment stability. Stability in paidemployment is greater in the social economy than in the market economy,especially in the market economy.
3. Smaller wage gap. Wage levels are much more equal. The lowerwage dispersion is mainly due to a higher wage restraint for top management andhigh-skilled workers. Therefore, the gender pay gap in the market economy isfive times that observed in the social market economy. Moreover, the differenceis even greater if we consider the Social Economy as a whole: in this case,women earn 3% less than their male counterparts, while in the market economy,this percentage is 26%.
4.Higher levels of equality. This is shown by thebetter results obtained in different dimensions of equality, such as gender paygaps, which are clearly smaller; diversity in management, with a greaterincorporation of women and people with disabilities; or the possibilities of betterreconciling family and professional life.
5.Expansion of the supply of care, education and water management services. The productive specialization of the social economy in services thatimprove people´s quality of life, such as care services and education, and arecommitted to environmental sustainability, such as water management, guaranteesa greater provision of services and a wide range of services.
In this sense,the president of CEPES, Juan Antonio Pedreño, highlights the wealth thatthis business model brings to Spanish society as a whole in every sense: "Thisstudy demonstrates the great weight of the Social Economy, both from aneconomic point of view due to its impact on employment, and from a social pointof view due to its contribution to social and territorial cohesion, where it isoften the only business actor that exists.
THE IMPACT OF THE SOCIAL ECONOMY IN TERMS OFEMPLOYMENT AND THE MONETARY VALUE OF THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF THESOCIAL MARKET ECONOMY
Inorder to quantify the impact of the differential principles of the SocialEconomy, the real scenario is compared with an alternative (and hypothetical)scenario in which the enterprises of the Social Economy “lose their principles”and begin to behave like commercial companies. The comparison of the real dataof the Social Economy with the alternative data (corresponding to commercialcompanies) can be quantified, both in number of jobs and in monetary units.
Inrelation to the monetary value of the contribution of the principles of themarket Social Economy, the study reveals that the values of Social Economycompanies and entities contribute 11,026 million euros to society annually,almost 5,000 million more than in the year 2019.
Thealternative scenario to the real one, a scenario in which the the market orbusiness sub-sector of the Social Economy behaved like the commercial one,would be defined by changes in employment, in such a way that we can estimatethe employment that is not lost thanks to the fact that the Social Economyentities They do not behave like commercial companies. This gain is realized interms of a job:
1. Less inclusive. More than 181,000 workers belonging to somegroup with difficulty accessing employment would lose their jobs. This losswould be especially important in the case of the employment of people withdisabilities, those with low qualifications or those over 55 years of age.
2. With lower levels of stability, increasing the number of peoplewith one or more experiences of unemployment. Every year, around 222,587workers who have enjoyed continuous periods of employment in the social marketeconomy would have one or more experiences of unemployment.
3.With lower salaries. A group of around272,500 workers, mainly women, over 55 years of age and people withdisabilities, would have lower salary levels.
4.With less equality of opportunities in enterprises.Some 232,982 women would see their salary gap increase with respect to theirmale colleagues and diversity in management and highly qualified positionswould be reduced. Likewise, a smaller, but important in qualitative terms,number of usually underrepresented workers would be expelled from managementand highly qualified positions.
5. With a smaller and less diverse private offer in care andeducational services. About 76,820 jobs in care services and other socialservices and 52,745 jobs in education services would be lost in the privatesector, affecting both the level and diversity of supply in these activities.
6.With less presence in rural areas. About 74,000jobs would be lost in rural areas and about 192,000 people could move to urbanareas. This job destruction shows a bias towards the employment of women andpeople with medium and high qualifications.
METHODOLOGY
Thestudy carried out by Abay Analistas uses a methodology applied to the reviewand measurement of the different effects that frames this study in the group ofimpact analysis with microdata, counterfactuals and quantitative techniques,one of the most complete for impact evaluation. Thus, the method of measuringeffects and their quantification is supported by large samples both for theSocial Economy and for the different control groups that are established. Ininitial samples of 732,082 employed people and 228,138 employing entities,10,291 Social Economy entities (4,751 in the market Social Economy) and 33,409employed people (15,814 in the market Social Economy) have been identified.From these subsamples, control groups (with companies and workers in themercantile economy) of similar size have been created. The sizes of thesesubsamples ensure their representativeness and the robustness of the analysis.
Thetypes of entities that are part of the social economy are: cooperatives, mutualsocieties, foundations and associations that carry out economic activity, laborsocieties, insertion enterprises, special employment centers, fishermen´sguilds, agrarian transformation societies and the singular entities created byspecific regulations that are governed by the principles established in Law5/2011 of Social Economy.
