Late Growth and Maturity Patterns at the turn of the 20th-Century Corrèze

Stephane Gauthier

PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) from HAL

Abstract: The height of conscripts around the age of 20 is widely used as a proxy for well-being in historical periods, under the assumption that it reflects nutritional and health conditions during growth years. This approach may be problematic if individuals are not yet fully grown at conscription age. This paper addresses this concern by constructing an individual-level panel of 2,916 men born in 1887 in Corrèze, using two nineteenth-century French conscription records. The data show that, for most men, height increases by only 0.3 to 0.4 cm in the year following their 20th birthday. However, the subset of the 20% of men identified as the most physically vulnerable continues to exhibit significant growth, gaining an additional 1.5 cm before reaching adult height around age 27. These findings suggest that relying on height at age 20, rather than adult stature, can lead to underestimation of available resources and an overstatement of inequality in their distribution.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Population, inPress

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Working Paper: Late Growth and Maturity Patterns at the turn of the 20th-Century Corrèze (2025)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:pseptp:halshs-05162744

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Caroline Bauer ().