José Miguel Martínez Carrión () (Departamento de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Murcia)
Abstract
The Spaniards stature evolution between 1850 and 1930 as well as the relationships among nutrition, health, and welfare are analyzed. Data from various Spanish regions together with the reconstruction of a stature series with heights from about 130,000 conscripts from the southeast suggest deterioration of biological standards of living in the generations born in Spain between 1840-50 and 1870 –a period of economic expansion and industry outbreak. Although the stature fall is not significant in comparison with that of The United States and England, the Kuznetsian thesis on environmental deterioration in early industrialization stages could be applied to the Spanish case. Results are observed in the light of the first phases of modern economic growth within an international context. Likewise, our series shows stature increase in those generations born from 1880 extending up to the eve of the First World War. Finally, it is reported an explanatory model of the factors that contributed to the stature trend and, particularly, the stature deterioration, leading to high rates of low heights until the beginning of the Restoration.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Find related papers by JEL classification: I00 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General - - - General J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Income, and Wealth - - - Europe: Pre-1913 O1 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)