IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/exehis/v64y2017icp111-120.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social mobility in the early middle ages

Author

Listed:
  • Meinzer, Nicholas J.

Abstract

Estimates of inequality of living standards based on average height differences between socioeconomic strata are likely biased if the social status of some individuals changed during their lifetime. Height differences estimated from skeletal remains, reflecting living standards during childhood and adolescence, are probably too small if social status is inferred based on grave goods which are associated with the individuals’ social status at the time of their death. The higher the level of social mobility, the more distinguished individuals will not have had a privileged childhood and, therefore, have the biological characteristics of the disadvantaged group. In a newly assembled sample of individual level anthropometric data from 26 early medieval row grave cemeteries in south-western Germany, men buried with a long sword in their grave were on average about 3cm taller than the others. In a simple model of the mechanics of the social-mobility bias, this height difference, together with parameters from the literature, implies a level of social mobility typical of small-scale agricultural or pastoral societies.

Suggested Citation

  • Meinzer, Nicholas J., 2017. "Social mobility in the early middle ages," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 111-120.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:exehis:v:64:y:2017:i:c:p:111-120
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2016.08.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014498316301188
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eeh.2016.08.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Koepke, Nikola & Baten, Joerg, 2005. "The biological standard of living in Europe during the last two millennia," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(1), pages 61-95, April.
    2. Manor, Orly & Matthews, Sharon & Power, Chris, 2003. "Health selection: the role of inter- and intra-generational mobility on social inequalities in health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(11), pages 2217-2227, December.
    3. D. Blane & S. Harding & M. Rosato, 1999. "Does social mobility affect the size of the socioeconomic mortality differential?: evidence from the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 162(1), pages 59-70.
    4. Boix, Carles & Rosenbluth, Frances, 2014. "Bones of Contention: The Political Economy of Height Inequality," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 108(1), pages 1-22, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meinzer, Nicholas J., 2018. "Persisting patterns of human height? Regional differences in living standards in the Early Middle Ages," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 148-167.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Palloni, Alberto & Milesi, Carolina & White, Robert G. & Turner, Alyn, 2009. "Early childhood health, reproduction of economic inequalities and the persistence of health and mortality differentials," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(9), pages 1574-1582, May.
    2. Boyle, Paul J. & Norman, Paul & Popham, Frank, 2009. "Social mobility: Evidence that it can widen health inequalities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 1835-1842, May.
    3. Scott Alan Carson & Scott A. Carson, 2022. "Nineteenth and Early 20th Century Physical Activity and Calories by Gender and Race," CESifo Working Paper Series 10140, CESifo.
    4. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Holger Strulik, 2014. "Physiological Constraints and Comparative Economic Development," Discussion Papers 14-21, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    5. Stegl, Mojgan & Baten, Joerg, 2009. "Tall and shrinking Muslims, short and growing Europeans: The long-run welfare development of the Middle East, 1850-1980," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 132-148, January.
    6. Rostek, Stefan & Schöbel, Rainer, 2006. "Risk preference based option pricing in a fractional Brownian market," Tübinger Diskussionsbeiträge 299, University of Tübingen, School of Business and Economics.
    7. Blair Fix, 2019. "Energy, hierarchy and the origin of inequality," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(4), pages 1-32, April.
    8. Felbermayr, Gabriel J. & Toubal, Farid, 2010. "Cultural proximity and trade," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 279-293, February.
    9. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Holger Strulik, 2015. "The physiological foundations of the wealth of nations," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 37-73, March.
    10. Martina Cioni & Giovanni Federico & Michelangelo Vasta, 2021. "Spreading Clio: a quantitative analysis of the first 25 years of the European Review of Economic History [Plague in seventeenth-century Europe and the decline of Italy: an epidemiological hypothesi," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 25(4), pages 618-644.
    11. Fix, Blair, 2017. "Evidence for a Power Theory of Personal Income Distribution," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2017/03, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    12. Halleröd, Björn & Gustafsson, Jan-Eric, 2011. "A longitudinal analysis of the relationship between changes in socio-economic status and changes in health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 116-123, January.
    13. Dawid Gondek & Ke Ning & George B Ploubidis & Bilal Nasim & Alissa Goodman, 2018. "The impact of health on economic and social outcomes in the United Kingdom: A scoping literature review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-21, December.
    14. Jongman, Willem M. & Jacobs, Jan P.A.M. & Klein Goldewijk, Geertje M., 2019. "Health and wealth in the Roman Empire," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 138-150.
    15. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Holger Strulik, 2006. "Subsistence – A Bio-economic Foundation of the Malthusian Equilibrium," Discussion Papers 06-17, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    16. Morgan Kelly & Cormac Ó Gráda, 2012. "Agricultural output, calories and living standards in England before and during the Industrial Revolution," Working Papers 201212, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    17. Heger, Diana & Zaby, Alexandra K., 2009. "The propensity to patent with vertically differentiated products: An empirical investigation," Tübinger Diskussionsbeiträge 325, University of Tübingen, School of Business and Economics.
    18. Schüle, Tobias, 2006. "Creditor coordination with social learning and endogenous timing of credit decisions," Tübinger Diskussionsbeiträge 307, University of Tübingen, School of Business and Economics.
    19. Klein Goldewijk, Geertje & Jacobs, Jan, 2013. "The relation between stature and long bone length in the Roman Empire," Research Report EEF-13002, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    20. Daza, Sebastian & palloni, alberto, 2018. "Income Mobility, Income Inequality and Mortality in the U.S," SocArXiv gdz2a, Center for Open Science.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:exehis:v:64:y:2017:i:c:p:111-120. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622830 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.