Disparities in Height and Urban Social Stratification in the First Half of the 20th Century in Madrid (Spain)

Abstract

Adult height is the most commonly used biological indicator to evaluate material and emotional conditions in which people grew up, allowing the analysis of secular trends associated with socio-economic change as well as of social inequalities among human populations. There is a lack of studies on both aspects regarding urban populations. Our study evaluates the secular trends and the disparities in height of conscripts born between 1915 and 1953 and called-up at the age of 21 between 1936 and 1969, living in districts with low versus middle and high socio-economic conditions, in the city of Madrid, Spain. We test the hypothesis that urban spatial segregation and social stratification was associated with significant differences in height. Results show that height increased significantly during the analysed period, both among conscripts living in the middle- and upper-class districts (5.85 cm) and in the lower-class districts (6.75 cm). The positive secular trend in height among conscripts from middle- and upper-class districts was sustained throughout the period, but the trend in height among the lower class fluctuated according to social, political, and economic events. Our findings support previous research that adult height is influenced strongly by the family living conditions during infancy and by community effects acting during childhood and adolescence.

Rural Height Penalty or Socioeconomic Penalization? The Nutritional Inequality in Backward Spain

“…In the same way, and since adult height synthesizes the socioeconomic conditions in which physical development occurs from birth [5,6], stature has proven to be also a good measurement of inequality. Height differences by education level, place of residence, social status, professional occupation, family wealth, labor market or among members of different castes o ethnic groups, have been used to analyze inequality in various parts of the world from diverse perspectives [7][8][9][10]. Likewise, the variability of stature has also made it possible to identify the impact of the institutional framework on inequality [11,12].…”

The pace of secular changes of body measurements of children and adolescents from Kolkata (India) in the context of socioeconomic inequalities between the sexes

“…Therefore, they occurred during the age of accelerated growth, associated with an adolescent growth spurt, as it is a phenomenon starting, on average, at about 9-10 years for girls and 11-12 for boys (Soliman et al, 2014). It is also one of the stages of human development, which have been demonstrated to be the most susceptible to socio-economic, household, and emotional conditions, including nutritional status, illnesses as well as physical and psychosocial stress (Bogin et al, 2018;Cameron & Demerath, 2002;Varea et al, 2019). Additionally, mentioned ages are also crucial because of the occurrence of puberty, which is essential for the later development.…”

Rethinking the Fertility Transition in Rural Aragón (Spain) Using Height Data

“…In any case, we should not forget that height is mainly conditioned by genetics. Only a small fraction of growth is conditioned by other various factors such as nutrition, epidemiology or the environment [33,40,[42][43][44][45][46].…”