Growing Tall but Unequal: New Findings and New Background Evidence on Anthropometric Welfare in 156 Countries, 1810–1989

Abstract

This is the first initiative to collate the entire body of anthropometric evidence during the 19th and 20th centuries, on a global scale. By providing a comprehensive dataset on global height developments we are able to emphasize an alternative view of the history of human well-being and a basis for understanding characteristics of well-being in 156 countries, 1810–1989.

Keywords:

• welfare
• anthropometric history
• gross domestic product estimation

JEL classification:

• N10
• N30
• O10

Notes

³The term “biological standard of living” was coined by Komlos in 1987. One of the rare exceptions to the height-longevity correlation is that of the relatively short, because protein-deprived, Japanese prior to the economic boom of the 1960s; their longevity values were above average thanks to their high valuation of personal hygiene, the importance of which was underscored by health-related instruction in the schools.

⁴We include all countries with more than 400,000 inhabitants for which evidence is available, using 1990 borders, in order to permit comparison with Maddison's 2001 GDP estimates. Following this strategy, we conlude that at this point in time 156 different countries can be taken into account.

⁵The third cohort comprises those who have attained adulthood at some point between the 1970s and the present. The authors found any variation in the coefficient among the three cohorts to be negligible.

⁶The following review of the literature is based on Moradi and Baten 2005.

⁷Given space considerations, we cannot give a literature review here (see instead Baten and Blum 2010 and Steckel 2009).

⁸Bahrain, Cape Verde, Djibouti, the Palestinian Territory, Qatar, Reunion, the United Arab Emirates, and finally the trio Mayotte, Saint Helena, and Western Sahara (aggregated as in Maddison 2001).

⁹Instead of exact measurements the Ottoman army categorized each recruit as small, medium, or large as well as barefaced or bearded.

¹⁰See the notes to Table 1 (Appendix) in the work cited. Baten and Komlos (1998) suggest the following adjustments, for societies in which males in their teens and twenties have yet to achieve their maximal height (as a rule, above 170 cm). Those who were 18 years of age were estimated to have 2.4 cm to go; those age 19 1.7 cm, those age 20 0.9 cm, those age 21 0.4, and finally those age 22 only 0.1 cm. Clearly these estimates are not valid for all populations, since growth in late adolescence is largely a function of the individual's environment, but without such simplification comparison of heights in this age group would be impossible. Moreover, the results presented in Table B.1 of the Appendix indicate that these estimates are generally valid.

¹¹We also did our best to rid our data set of social, ethnic, and regional biases. On migrant height bias, see Baten and Blum 2010.

¹²The cutoff criterion for including a world region and a half century was 10% with one notable exception: that of “aggregated ages,” for which we had to estimate the birth decade in which the majority of measured individuals were born; in this case we raised the level to 30%.

¹³We also created dummy variables for the rare cases that we encountered of significant regional, ethnic, and social selectivity (e.g., workers in South Africa), and include those dummies in our regressions below. By “significant” we mean evidence (derived from more or less contemporary studies) of a one-centimetre (or greater) deviation from the national mean.