This article deals with changes in the management of industrial labour in Catalonia between 1830 and 1925. In the absence of state welfare, families developed a number of strategies to try and secure an adequate standard of living. During the nineteenth century labour markets were informal, and working contracts implicit. However, with the advent of scientific organization of labour in the 1920s, hourly wage agreements began to be recorded. The application of cooperative game theory illuminates the processes by which households in this era managed to generate income. Both kin- and non-kin-related networks were used to improve the living standards of the household. Strategies of co-residence initially developed by migrants were later imitated by locally born inhabitants. Initially the living standards of migrants were thus higher than those of natives.