Household Food and Wages: The Hygienic Economic Survey of the National Institute of Nutrition and the ILO

AGUILAR, PAULA LUCÍA

Bremen

Workshop; Social Policies and the Welfare State in the Global South in the 19th and the 20th Century; 2017

Universität Bremen

Households, food and wages: The hygienic-economic survey of the National Institute of Nutrition and ILO Between 1936 and 1937, a group of "social researchers" graduated at the Museo Social Argentino (Argentina Social Museum) and trained by experts from the Instituto Nacional de la Nutrición (National Nutrition Institute) collected detailed data from 600 families from different neighborhoods in Buenos Aires during 31 days. The survey addressed the family composition, health, labor situation, and their family budget, especially housing and food consumption rates. Many social assistance institutions, both public and private facilitated access to the families interviewed and assisted in monitoring the survey. The results obtained were systematized by the institute staff, published in its Bulletin and presented to international experts? forums on diverse social problems. This paper analyzes the detailed record of the work and living conditions which focused on the family as the main unit of analysis and which enrolls in a series of initiatives that locally and transnationally particularly by ILO , promoted the production of knowledge about working classes household, their family budgets and their consumption habits in relation to their salary. It also understands that the categories and techniques at play in these kind of surveys contribute, not without conflict, to the delimitation of ?home? as a place of State intervention.