Short men in poor lands: The agrarian workers from southwestern Spain in anthropometric perspective
Antonio M. Linares-Luján and
Francisco M. Parejo-Moruno
Economics & Human Biology, 2022, vol. 47, issue C
Abstract:
With a sample of heights of almost 60,000 men, born between 1855 and 1979 and recruited between 1876 and 2000, our work analyzes the nutritional gap between the agrarian and non-agrarian population in Extremadura, a Spanish region located among the poorest ones in Europe. The analysis reveals that this difference is not only statistically significant, but also tends to increase as the average stature of the active population grows. Among the causes of the agrarian height penalty, our article focuses mainly on the economic differences. However, the research also insists on the roots of these differences, especially those linked to the adverse physical conditions of the territory, the dynamics of the Christian conquest in the Middle Ages and the strong and persistent concentration of land ownership in the region. In short, this paper concludes that the anthropometric gap between agrarian and non-agrarian workers is due not only to economic causes, but also to geographical, historical and institutional reasons.
Keywords: Nutrition; Stature; Agrarian height penalty; Day laborers; Extremadura (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I31 J01 J31 N33 N34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:47:y:2022:i:c:s1570677x22000697
DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2022.101173
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