Título
Height and inequality in Spain: a long-term perspective
Autores
Antonio Cámara · José Miguel Martínez-Carrión · Javier Puche · Josep-Maria Ramon-Muñoz
Año de publicación
2019
Citación
Cámara, A., Martínez-Carrión, J.M., Puche, J. & Ramon-Muñoz, J.M. (2019): “Height and inequality in Spain: a long-term perspective”, Revista de Historia Económica, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, 37, 2, pp. 205-238.
Abstract
This article analyses the evolution of nutritional inequality in Spain among cohorts born between 1840 and 1964. With male height data (N = 358,253), the secular trend of biological well-being and intergenerational anthropometric inequalities are studied based on the coefficient of variation, height percentiles and socioeconomic categories (students, literate non-students and illiterate). The results reveal that the nutritional inequalities were very large in the mid-19th century. Anthropometric inequalities diminished among those born between 1880 and 1919 and increased again, although only moderately, from the cohorts of the 1920s. From the 1930s there was a cycle of sustained increase in height. Despite nutritional improvement, the data suggest that nutritional inequalities increased during the Franco regime, affecting the low-income population segments particularly.