The Great Leap Upwards: Anthropometric Data and Indicators of Crises and Secular Change in Soviet Welfare Levels, 1880-1960

Abstract

Assessing the change in the level of Soviet welfare in the first half of the twentieth century presents many problems. There are the problems associated with the reliability and accessibility of Soviet statistics, and there are those associated with the problem of understanding the peculiar nature of the Soviet situation in which a trend toward rapid secular improvements in welfare and life expectancy were accompanied by massive shortterm welfare and mortality crises. These problems are made even more complicated by the intense politicization of this question. In this paper I address all of these problems.

Making Famine History

“…Recovery from famine conditions thus came relatively fast, and living standards were higher on the eve of World War II 30 than before collectivization (Allen 2003). Birth-weight and height data capture the immediate and long-term effects of the famine, although they also suggest that World War II bore even more heavily on the population as a whole than the "years of hunger" (Wheatcroft 1999). …”

Heights and human welfare: Recent developments and new directions

“…Moreover, using additional height data on ads for runaway servants placed in the Pennsylvania Gazette, he finds that heights of men (but not women) increased over the eighteenth century (Grubb 1999a (Mironov 1999a). Wheatcroft extends the analysis to the middle of the twentieth century, noting crises years of 1899-1909, 1913-1918, and 1923-1934 amidst substantial long-term improvement in human welfare as measured by average height and by mortality rates (Wheatcroft 1999). Brainerd reports that stature and mortality rates fluctuated dramatically during the crisis years but showed no overall downward trend until the late 1960s (Brainerd 2006).…”

Nutrition and growth in Italy, 1861–1911: What macroeconomic data hide

“…United States of America (USA): Bennet and Peirce (1961), Komlos (1987). Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR): Wheatcroft (1999). Calorie intakes may provide a flawed picture of the nutritional regime when the diet is lacking in important nutrients.…”