Rural and urban consumption of services : regional disparities in Spain

With the development of modern societies, the consumption of services has undergone important changes during the last years. The ongoing process of urbanization of the rural areas means that the consumption of services in these zones towards the urban consumption. Even though rural society has evolved, some asymmetries are enduring between the different zones and imply a different consumption pattern. The aim of this paper is to analyze the explanatory factors of these divergences. These factors are not purely economic, but also of a different nature such as the participation of women to the labour market and the size of the household, among others. The paper is based on the information from by the survey on family budgets.