The Heights of Europeans Since 1750:  A New Source For European Economic History

Floud, Roderick

doi:10.3386/w1318

Cited by 75 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 2 publications

(1 reference statement)

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“…This inference is consistent with debrachycephalization and increase in stature in European countries in recent years (Facchini and Gualdi-Russo, 1982;Susanne et al, 1988;Floud, 1994;Gyenis, 1994). Data from living subjects concerning secular change in head height is lacking, probably because measurements of auricular height are susceptible to large inter-observer measurement errors.…”

Section: Head Breadth and Bizygomatic Breadthsupporting

confidence: 79%

Secular changes in the Japanese head form viewed from somatometric data

Kouchi

2004

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The purpose of the present study was to assess evidence of secular changes in cephalic measurements and to clarify the causes of brachycephalization. Somatometric data of the head and face were investigated for secular changes by comparing data measured by the same observer for 2 groups of subjects differing in age by 45 to 50 years, and by examining trends of the last 100 years. Relationships between measurement, birth year, age at measurement, and year at measurement were examined using partial correlation coefficients. A positive secular change was observed for head breadth, which had a pattern of change that was very similar to that of height. Head length first decreased and then increased. No trend was observed for bizygomatic breadth when the year of measurement was considered. It appears that thickness of the soft tissue on the face is significantly influenced by nutritional status at the time of measurement. Measurement errors in total head height were apparently too large for analysis of secular changes. The parallelism between head breadth and height suggests that nutritional improvement in prenatal and early postnatal life is a plausible cause of the brachycephalization in the last 100 years. The finding that face measurements do not show clear secular change may indicate that they are more strictly determined by function than is the case for measurements of the neurocranium. As possible causes for the difference in secular change in head form/dimensions between Asian and European populations, differences in timing and dominant direction of the very rapid growth of the brain are discussed. There is inconsistency between the pattern of secular change in the 20th century and that of the 14th to 19th centuries. The possible causes of this are also discussed.

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Section: Head Breadth and Bizygomatic Breadthsupporting

confidence: 79%

Secular changes in the Japanese head form viewed from somatometric data

Kouchi

2004

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“…Floud (1994) and Steckel (1995) found a positive effect of per capita income and a negative effect of infant mortality. Using a similar database, Schneider (1996) found evidence that height was also negatively related to the marital fertility rate.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How have Europeans grown so tall?

Hatton¹

2013

Oxford Economic Papers

103

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How have Europeans Grown so Tall?* Increases in human stature are seen as a key indicator of improvement in the average health of populations. The literature associates stature with a variety of socioeconomic variables, and much of the focus is on the nineteenth century and on the last 50 years. In this paper I present and analyse a new dataset for the average height of adult male cohorts, from the mid-nineteenth century to 1980, in fifteen European countries. In little more than a century average height increased by 11cm--representing a dramatic improvement in health. Interestingly, there was a distinct acceleration in the period spanning the two World Wars and the Great Depression. I examine the influence of socioeconomic variables on height through the two key channels: nutrition and the disease environment. The evidence suggests that the most important single cause of increasing height was the improving disease environment as reflected by the fall in infant mortality. Rising income and education and falling family size had more modest effects. Improvements in health care are hard to identify and the effects of the welfare state spending seem to have been small. JEL Classification: I12, I38 and N24

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“…Several influential studies have used regression analysis to link the variations in height to income per capita, particularly from the mid-nineteenth century up to 1930 (Floud, 1994;Steckel 1995). The effects are strongly positive, especially after the middle decades of the nineteenth century.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%