TY - JOUR
T1 - New anthropometric evidence on living standards in nineteenth-century Chile
AU - Llorca-Jaña, Manuel
AU - Clarke, Damian
AU - Navarrete-Montalvo, Juan
AU - Araya-Valenzuela, Roberto
AU - Allende, Martina
N1 - Funding Information:
We are very grateful to the Chilean Navy for granting us access to their personnel records. We are particularly indebted to the Admiral, to Cecilia Guzmán-Bastías, Chief of the Archivo y Biblioteca Histórica de la Armada Museo Marítimo, and to Raimundo Silva. We are also grateful to this journal's referees and its editor (J. Baten), John Komlos, José Díaz, Katharine Wilson, Rodrigo Rivero and Ignacio Pérez. This article was funded by Anillos-CONICYT-PIA-SOC180001 and Fondecyt Regular1180005.
Funding Information:
We are very grateful to the Chilean Navy for granting us access to their personnel records. We are particularly indebted to the Admiral, to Cecilia Guzmán-Bastías, Chief of the Archivo y Biblioteca Histórica de la Armada Museo Marítimo, and to Raimundo Silva. We are also grateful to this journal’s referees and its editor (J. Baten), John Komlos, José Díaz, Katharine Wilson, Rodrigo Rivero and Ignacio Pérez. This article was funded by Anillos-CONICYT-PIA-SOC180001 and Fondecyt Regular 1180005 .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2020/1
Y1 - 2020/1
N2 - A sample of over 44 thousand Chilean marines was used to estimate the trend of mean heights from the 1820s to the 1890s. We confirm that there was height stagnation in the last decades of the nineteenth-century Chile despite sizeable per capita GDP growth; there were hidden nutritional costs to this economic growth. This situation resembles a similar puzzle in antebellum USA or early industrial Britain, but in the case of Chile GDP growth is not explained by industrialization but by export-led-growth. Still, the results are similar: height stagnation. Regarding the determinants of adult male height, our data also convincingly showed that there was a significant correlation between height and literacy. There was a positive correlation between height and white ethnicity, and, linked to this, a strong negative correlation between stature and eyes reported as “black”. Finally, living in urban environments (or environments with higher population density) also negatively affected height.
AB - A sample of over 44 thousand Chilean marines was used to estimate the trend of mean heights from the 1820s to the 1890s. We confirm that there was height stagnation in the last decades of the nineteenth-century Chile despite sizeable per capita GDP growth; there were hidden nutritional costs to this economic growth. This situation resembles a similar puzzle in antebellum USA or early industrial Britain, but in the case of Chile GDP growth is not explained by industrialization but by export-led-growth. Still, the results are similar: height stagnation. Regarding the determinants of adult male height, our data also convincingly showed that there was a significant correlation between height and literacy. There was a positive correlation between height and white ethnicity, and, linked to this, a strong negative correlation between stature and eyes reported as “black”. Finally, living in urban environments (or environments with higher population density) also negatively affected height.
KW - Chile
KW - Height
KW - Living conditions
KW - Navy
KW - Nineteenth century
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074392656&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ehb.2019.100819
DO - 10.1016/j.ehb.2019.100819
M3 - Article
C2 - 31653593
AN - SCOPUS:85074392656
SN - 1570-677X
VL - 36
JO - Economics and Human Biology
JF - Economics and Human Biology
M1 - 100819
ER -