Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T20:07:25.977Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

NET NUTRITION AND THE TRANSITION FROM 19TH CENTURY BOUND TO FREE-LABOR: ASSESSING DIETARY CHANGE WITH DIFFERENCES-IN-DECOMPOSITIONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2018

Scott Alan Carson
Scott Alan Carson*
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Permian Basin and CESifo
*
Address correspondence to: Scott Alan Carson, University of Texas, Permian Basin, 4901 East University, Odessa, TX 79762, USA; e-mail: [email protected].
Get access

Abstract:

Average stature reflects cumulative net nutrition and health during economic development. This study introduces a difference-in-decompositions approach to show that although 19th century African-American cumulative net nutrition was comparable to working class whites, it was made worse-off with the transition to free-labor. Average stature reflects net nutrition over the life-course, and adult blacks born under bound-labor had greater age related statures loss than blacks under free-labor. Agricultural worker's net nutrition was better than workers in other occupations and was better-off under free-labor and industrialization. Within-group stature variation was greater than across-group variation, and white within-group stature variation associated with socioeconomic status was greater than African-Americans.

Keywords

Stature variationcumulative net nutritionOaxaca decompositionC1C4D1I1N3
Type
Research Papers
Information
Journal of Demographic Economics , Volume 84 , Issue 4 , December 2018 , pp. 447 - 475
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I appreciate comments from the anonymous referees, Doug Henderson, Shahil Sharma, Chinuedu Akah, Meekam Okeke, Lee Carson, Joe Beene, Kellye Manning, and Paul Hodges.

References

REFERENCES

Albersson-Wikland, K. and Karlberg, J. P. E. (1995) Selection of cut-off points in defining shortness. 19th International Symposium Growth Hormone and Growth Factors in Endocrinology and Metabolism, Prague.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S. (1957) The economics of Discrimination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S. (1993) Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis with special reference to education, 3rd Edition. Chicago: National Bureau of Economic Research and Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Behrman, Jere (2016) Growth faltering in the first thousand days after conception and catch-up growth. In Komlos, J. and Kelly, I. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Economics and Human Biology, pp. 9–31. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bodenhorn, Howard, Guinnane, Timothy W., and Mroz, Thomas A. (2015) Sample-selection biases and the industrialization puzzle. Journal of Economic History 77 (1), 171–207.Google Scholar
Brakken, Sigrid K., Burch, Knut H., Mathiesen, Ellisiv B., Njostad, Inger, Wisgaard, Tom, and Hansen, John-Bjarne (2010) Body height and risk of venous thromboembolism: The Tromsø Study. American Journal of Epidemiology 171 (10), 1109–1115.Google Scholar
Butler, Richard J., Heckman, James J., and Payner, Brook (1989) The impact of the economy and the state on the economic status of blacks: A study of South Carolina. In Galenson, David (ed.), Markets in history: Economic studies of the past. pp. 231–246. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Carson, Scott Alan (2008a) Health during industrialization: Evidence from the 19th century Pennsylvania State Prison system. Social Science History 32 (3), 347–372.Google Scholar
Carson, Scott Alan (2008b) The effect of geography and vitamin D on African-American stature in the 19th century: Evidence from prison records. Journal of Economic History 68 (3), 812–830.Google Scholar
Carson, Scott Alan (2009a) Racial differences in body-mass indices of men imprisoned in 19th century Texas. Economics and Human Biology 7 (1), 121–127.Google Scholar
Carson, Scott Alan (2009b) African-American and White inequality in the 19th century American South: A biological comparison. Journal of Population Economics 22 (3), 757–772.Google Scholar
Carson, Scott Alan (2009c) Geography, insolation and vitamin D in 19th century US African-American and White statures. Explorations in Economic History 46 (1), 149–159.Google Scholar
Carson, Scott Alan (2010) Wealth, inequality, and insolation effects across the 19th century White US stature distribution. Journal Homo of Comparative Human Biology 61 (6), 467–478.Google Scholar
Carson, Scott Alan (2011a) Height of female Americans in the 19th century and the antebellum puzzle. Economics and Human Biology 9 (2), 157–164.Google Scholar
Carson, Scott Alan (2011b) Nineteenth century African-American and White US statures: The primary sources of vitamin D and their relationship with height. Journal of Bioeconomics 13 (1), 1–15.Google Scholar
Carson, Scott Alan (2013a) Socioeconomic effects on the stature of nineteenth century US women. Feminist Economics 19 (2), 122–143.Google Scholar
Carson, Scott Alan (2013b) Biological conditions and economic development: Westward expansion and health in late 19th and early 20th century Montana. Journal of Historical Society 13 (1), 51–68.Google Scholar
Carson, Scott Alan (2015) Biological conditions and economic development: 19th century US statures on the Great Plains. Human Nature 26 (2), 123–142.Google Scholar
Carson, Scott Alan (2017) Health on the nineteenth century U.S. Great Plains: Opportunity or displacement? Journal of Interdisciplinary History XLVIII, 21–41.Google Scholar
Case, Anne and Paxson, Christina (2008a) Height, health, and cognitive development at older ages. American Economic Review 98 (2), 463–467.Google Scholar
Case, Anne and Paxson, Christina (2008b) Stature and status: Height, ability, and labor market outcomes. Journal of Political Economy 116 (3), 499–532.Google Scholar
Cho, Yoon Shin, Go, Min Jin, Kim, Young Jin, Heo, Jee Yeon, Oh, Ji Hee, Ban, Hyo-Jeong, Yoon, Dankyu, Lee, Mi Hee, Kim, Dong-Joon, Park, Miey, Cha, Seung-Hun, Kim, Jun-Woo, Han, Bok-Ghee, Min, Haesook, Ahn, Younjhin, Park, Man Suk, Han, Hye Ree, Jang, Hye-Yoon, Cho, Eun Young, Lee, Jong-Eun, Cho, Nam H, Shin, Chol, Park, Taesung, Park, Ji Wan, Lee, Jong-Keuk, Cardon, Lon, Clarke, Geraldine, McCarthy, Mark I, Lee, Jong-Young, Lee, Jong-Koo, Oh, Bermseok, and Kim, Hyung-Lae (2009) A large-scale genome-wide association study of Asian population uncovers genetic factors influencing eight quantitative traits. Nature Genetics 41, 527–534.Google Scholar
Cohn, Raymond (2009) Mass Migration Under Sail: European Immigration to the Antebellum United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Collins, William and Margo, Robert (2006) Historical perspectives on racial differences in schooling in the United States. In Hanushek, E. and Welch, F. (eds.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, pp. 107–154. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Davey-Smith, George, Hart, Carol, Upton, Mark, Holeb, David, Gillisb, Charles, Wattc, Graham, and Hawthorned, Victor (2000) Height and risk of death among men and women: Aetioloical implications of associations with cardiorespiratory disease and cancer mortality. Journal Epiodemilogical Community Health 54 (2), 97–103.Google Scholar
David, Paul A., Gutman, Herbert G., Sutch, Richard, Temin, Peter, and Wright, Gavin (1976) Reckoning with Slavery: A Critical Study in the Quantitative History of American Negro Slavery. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, James, Rose, Jerome, Gutman, Myron, Haines, Michael, Condron, Keith, and Condran, Cindy. (2002) The quality of African-American life in the Old Southwest near the turn of the 20th century. In Steckel, R. and Rose, J. (eds.), The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere, pp. 226–280. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dimitri, Carolyn, Effland, Anne and Conklin, Neilson (2005) The 20th century transformation of US agriculture and farm policy. United States Department of Agriculture Electronic Information Bulletin no. 3 http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/59390/2/eib3.pdf. Accessed August 7th, 2016.Google Scholar
Dirks, Robert (2016) Food in the Gilded Age: What Ordinary Americans Ate. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Donald, David Herbert (1995) Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration (2012) Adult height and the risk of cause specific death and the risk of cause specific death and vascular morbidity is one million people: Individual participant meta-analysis. International Journal of Epidemiology 41 (5), 1419–1433.Google Scholar
Farley, Reynolds and Allen, Walter R. (1987) The Color Line and the Quality of Life in America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Ferrie, Joseph (1999) Yankey's Now: Immigrants in the Antebellum U. S. 1840–1860. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Floud, Roderick, Fogel, Robert, Harris, Bernard, and Hong, Sok Chul, (2011) The Changing Body: Health, Nutrition, and Human Development World Since 1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert (1989) Without Consent of Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert (1994) Economic growth, population theory and physiology: The bearing of long-term processes on the making of economic policy. American Economic Review 84 (3), 369–395.Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert and Engermann, Stanley (1974) Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery. Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, & Company.Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert, Engerman, Stanley, Trussell, James, Floud, Roderick, Pope, Clayne, and Wimmer, Larry (1978) Economics of mortality in North America, 1650–1910: A description of a research project. Historical Methods 11 (2), 75–108.Google Scholar
Fortin, Nicole, Lemieax, Thomas, and Firgo, Sergio (2011) Decomposition methods in economics. In Card, D. and Ashenfelter, O. (eds.), Handbook of Labor Economics, vol. 4, Part A, pp. 1–102. New York: Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence (1993) Crime and Punishment in American History. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Galloway, Lowell and Vedder, Richard (1971) Mobility of Native Americans. Journal of Economic History 31 (3), 613–649.Google Scholar
Galloway, Lowell and Vedder, Richard (1980) Population transfers and the post-bellum adjustments to economic dislocations. Journal of Economic History 40 (1), 143–150.Google Scholar
Gao, Wenshu and Smyth, Russell (2010) Health, human capital, height, and wages in China. Journal of Development Studies 46 (3), 466–484.Google Scholar
Gregory, James (2005) The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migration of Black and White Southerners Transformed America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Haboubi, N. Y., Hudson, P. R., and Pathy, M. S. (1990) Measurement of height in the elderly. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 38 (9), 1008–1010.Google Scholar
Hammermesh, Daniel and Biddle, Jeff (1994) Beauty in the labor market. American Economic Review 84, 1174–1194.Google Scholar
Haines, Michael, Craig, Lee and Weiss, Thomas (2003) The short and the dead: Nutrition, mortality, and the “antebellum puzzle” in the United States. The Journal of Economic History 63 (2), 382–413.Google Scholar
Higgs, Robert (1977) Competition and Coercion: Blacks in the American Economy, 1865–1914. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hilliard, Samuel B. (1972) Hog, Meat and Hoecake: Food Supply in the Old South, 1840–1860. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Huang, Wei, Lei, Xiaoyan, Ridder, Geert, Strauss, John, and Zhao, Yaohue (2013) Health, height shrinkage, and SES at older ages: Evidence from China. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 5 (2), 86–121.Google Scholar
Kahn, Charles (1992) A linear-programming solution to the slave diet. In Fogel, R. and Engerman, S. (eds.), Without Consent or Contract: Conditions of Slave Life and the Transition to Freedom, Technical Papers, vol. 2, pp. 532–535. New York: Norton Publishers.Google Scholar
Kelly, Jennifer and Angel, Lawrence (1987) Life stresses of slavery. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 74 (2), 199–213.Google Scholar
Komlos, John (1987) The height and weight of West Point cadets: Dietary change in antebellum America. Journal of Economic History 47 (4), 897–927.Google Scholar
Komlos, John (1992) Toward an anthropometric history of African-Americans: The case of the free blacks in antebellum Maryland. In Goldin, C. and Rockoff, H. (eds.), Strategic Factors in Nineteenth Century American Economic History: A Volume to Honor Robert W. Fogel, pp. 297–329. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Komlos, John (1998) Shrinking in a growing economy? The mystery of physical stature during the Industrial Revolution. Journal of Economic History 58 (3), 779–802.Google Scholar
Komlos, John and A'Hearn, Brian (2016) The decline in the nutritional status of the US antebellum population at the onset of modern economic growth. National Bureau of Economic Research working paper 21845.Google Scholar
Komlos, John and Coclanis, Peter (1997) On the puzzling cycle in the biological standard of living: The case of antebellum Georgia. Explorations in Economic History 34 (4), 433–459.Google Scholar
Komlos, John and Carson, Scott (2017) The BMI values of the lower classes likely declined during the Great Depression. Economics and Human Biology 26, 137–143.Google Scholar
Lai, Chao-Qiang (2006) How much of human height is due to nutrition? Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-of-human-height/.Google Scholar
Lee, Myong_Jae (2005) Micro-Econometrics for Policy, Program, and Treatment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Luke, A., Guo, X., Adeyomo, A. A., Wilks, A., Forrestor, T., Lowe, W. W., and Martin, L. J., (2001) Heritability of obesity related traits among Nigerians, Jamaicans, and US Black people. International Journal of Obesity 25, 1034–1041.Google Scholar
Maloney, Thomas (2002) African Americans in the 20th century. Eh.Net. https://eh.net/encyclopedia/african-americans-in-the-twentieth-century/. Accessed September 16th, 2016.Google Scholar
Margo, Robert and Steckel, Richard (1992) The nutrition and health of slaves and antebellum southern Whites. In Fogel, R. and Engerman, S. (eds.), Without Consent or Contract: Conditions of Slave Life and the Transition to Freedom, Technical Papers, vol. 2, pp. 508–521. New York: Wiley Publishers.Google Scholar
Miedema, Michael D., Petrone, Andrew B., Arnett, Donna K., Dodson, John A., Jeffrey Carr, J., Pankow, James S., Hunt, Steven C., Province, Michael A., Kraja, Aldi, Michael Gaziano, J., and Djousse, Luc (2014) Adult height and prevalence of coronary artery calcium: The nutritional heart, lung, and blood institute family heart study. Circulation Cardiovascular Imaging 7 (1), 52–57.Google Scholar
Oaxaca, Ron L. (1973) Male female wage differentials in urban labor markets. International Economic Review 14 (3), 693–709.Google Scholar
Oaxaca, Ronald and Ransom, Michael (1999) Identification in detailed wage decompositions. Review of Economics and Statistics 81 (1), 154–157.Google Scholar
Paajanen, Tuula A., Oksala, Niku K. J., Kuukasjärvi, Pekka, and Karhunen, Pekka J. (2010) Short stature is associated with coronary heart disease: A systematic review of the literature and meta-analysis. European Heart Journal 31 (4), 1802–1809.Google Scholar
Perkins, Jessica, Subramamian, S. V., Davey-Smith, George, and Ӧzaltin, Emre (2016) Adult height, nutrition, and population health. Nutrition Reviews 74 (3), 149–165.Google Scholar
Persico, Nicola, Postlewaite, Andrew and Silverman, Dan (2004) The effect of adolescient experience of labor market outcomes: The case of height. National Bureau of Economic Affairs working paper 10522.Google Scholar
Plant, Robert (1974) Selected Economic Essays and Addresses. London and Boston: Routledge and Keagan.Google Scholar
Ransom, Roger and Sutch, Richard (1977) One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rathbun, Ted (1987) Health and disease at a South Carolina plantation: 1840–1870. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 74, 239–254.Google Scholar
Rathbun, Ted and Steckel, Richard (2002) Health of slaves and free Blacks in the east. In Steckel, R. and Rose, J. (eds.), The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere, pp. 208–225. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rees, R., Komlos, John, Long, Ngo, and Woitek, Ulrich (2003) Optimal food allocation in a slave economy. Journal of Population Economics 16, 21–36.Google Scholar
Rosenbloom, Joshua (2002) Looking for Work, Searching for Workers: American Labor Markets during Industrialization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, Eric B. (2017) Children's growth in an adaptive framework: Explaining the growth patterns of American slaves and other historical populations. The Economic History Review 70 (1), 3–29.Google Scholar
Sokoloff, Ken and Villaflor, Georgia (1982) Early achievement of modern stature in America. Social Science History 6 (4), 453–481.Google Scholar
Steckel, Richard (1986a) A peculiar population: The nutritional, health, and mortality of American slaves from childhood to mortality. Journal of Economic History 46 (3), 721–741.Google Scholar
Steckel, Richard (1986b) A dreadful childhood: Excess mortality of American slaves. Social Science History 10 (4), 427–465.Google Scholar
Steckel, Richard and Rose, Jerome (2002) Patterns of health in the western hemisphere. In Steckel, R. and Rose, J. (eds.), The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sunstrum, William (2013) African-Americans since emancipation. In Whaples, R. and Parker, Randell (eds.), Rougledge Handbook of Modern Economic History, pp. 316–340. New York: Routledge Press.Google Scholar
Tribe, Keith (2009) Liberalism and neoliberalism in Britain, 1930–1980. In Mirowski, P. and Plehwe, D. (eds.), The Road from Mont Pelerin, pp. 68–97. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Turner, Frederick Jackson (1893) The frontier in American history. Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Wahl, Jenny Bourne (1996) The jurisprudence of American slave sales. The Journal of Economic History 56 (1), 143–169.Google Scholar
Wahl, Jenny Bourne (1997) Legal constraints on slave masters: The problem of social Cost. The American Journal of Legal History, 41 (1), 1–24.Google Scholar
Woodward, C. Vann (1951) Origins of the New South,1977–1913. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University.Google Scholar
Wright, Gavin (1978) The Political Economy of the South: Households, Markets, and Wealth in the 19th Century. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Xiang, Xiaoling and An, Ruopong (2015) Body weight status and onset of cognitive impairment among US middle aged older adult. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 60 (3), 334–400.Google Scholar
Yun, Myeung-Su (2008) Identification problem and detailed Oaxaca decomposition: A general solution and inference. Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, 33, 27–38.Google Scholar
Zehetmayer, Mattias (2011) The continuation of the antebellum puzzle: Stature in the US, 1847–1894. European Review of Economic History, 15 (2), 313–327.Google Scholar
Zimran, Ariell (2015) Does sample-selection bias explain the Industrialization Puzzle? Evidence from military enlistment in the nineteenth-century United States. http://aez.econ.northwestern.edu/zimran_height_selection.pdf.Google Scholar