Generational effects and gender height dimorphism in contemporary Spain

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Abstract

We examine the influence of socio-environmental (and birth cohort specific) effects on both adult height and gender dimorphism (height gap). Our data set is from contemporary Spain, a country governed by an authoritarian regime for about 40 years. Both OLS and quantile regression approaches are used to examine these patterns. Furthermore, we then draw upon a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition approach to explain the influence of socio-political environment in explaining gender dimorphism. Our findings point to a significant increase in adult height in the generations that benefited from the country's economic liberalization in the 1950s, and especially among those brought up after the transition to democracy in the 1970s. In contrast, individual heterogeneity suggests that only in recent generations has “height increased more among the tallest”. We also find that the effects of education on height are greater among shorter individuals. Although the mean gender difference in height is 11.7 cm, birth cohort and capabilities effects along with other controls explain on average roughly 4% of the gender height dimorphism, irrespective of the quantile considered.

Introduction

Height is a retrospective measure of an individual's health and biological standard of living, almost completely determined before the person reaches the age of 20 (Komlos and Baten, 1998, Persico et al., 2004). In a genetically stable society changes in adult height is a physical return to psychologically and socio-economically favorable environments (Steckel, 1995). If so, beneficial inputs such as nutritional improvements, comprehensive health care, health awareness and suitable housing conditions may all potentially translate into height improvements for those at growing ages (Komlos and Lauderale, 2007, Smith et al., 2003, WHO, 1983). More recently, some studies estimate that environmental factors are responsible for as much as 20% of adult height variability (Silventoinen, 2003).1 Some suggest that the development of the welfare state influenced height growth (Sunder, 2003). Accordingly, the average height stagnation of the American population during much of the second half of the 20th century could be well explained in part by the fragmentation of the health system along with other nutritional and environmental effects (Komlos and Baur, 2004, Komlos and Lauderale, 2007).

Environmental pathways are often generation specific and include inter-alia medical services, nutrition, lifestyle attributes such as fast food culture and welfare support for health and social care after controlling for individual heterogeneity (e.g., capacity, geography).2 The political system also matters insofar as it determines to considerable extent the institutional framework within which the economic actors manage their lives (North, 1991). Autocratic regimes—such as Spain during the fascist era – in which essential liberties are denied and international economic exchange is restricted – would be expected to curtail health production.

The introduction of structural reforms in a country's organization (e.g., the transition from planned to market economies) might induce environmentally healthy effects and ultimately enhance a positive affect on well being in the long run. However, the effects of economic and political liberalization on height do not necessarily go hand in hand (Olson, 1993). Whilst economic liberalization may bring reforms that improve access to food sources, introduction of new technologies and so on, some studies find that the main effects on human capital come from political liberalization and the introduction of democratic decision-making systems (Tavares and Wacziarg, 2001).3

To be sure, some people are deprived in democracies as well. We hypothesize that economic liberalization might increase height faster among groups deprived in earlier generations. On the other hand, political liberalization would be expected to convey these effects to the entire population. Furthermore, certain institutional environments are hypothetically more damaging to women than to men. Traditional explanations for gender (sex) height dimorphism in mammals include evolutionary explanations relying primarily on sexual selection4 and mating (Bogin, 1999, Darwin, 1871). However, humans appear to exhibit lower levels of sexual dimorphism than other species and, such dimorphism appears to decrease with evolution (Bonduriansky, 2007).5 On the other hand, even if environmental influences have empirical support (Wolf and Gray, 1982), some evolutionary theories suggest that it is inversely related to the degree of paternal investment in parenting (Bonduriansky, 2007). Explanations include the existence of unfair social norms (known as ‘environmental disadvantages’) and to disadvantages in the treatment of hazards at childbirth and in gaining access to food. The influence of some of these factors has been pointed out in the feminist economics literature, namely the effects of individual ability (Iversen, 2003) and women's self-respect compared to men (Nussbaum, 2003, Nussbaum, 2004). However, the evidence to explain patterns of adult height differences between males and females is limited.

Using data from the Spanish National Health Survey (2003), we examine the determinants of physical stature for adult men and women in contemporary Spain, given the significant socio-political and economic reforms that have taken place in the last three decades. We consider birth cohort environmental effects on (i) self-reported adult height and its distribution (individual heterogeneity) and (ii) the gender dimorphism and its distribution in different height quantiles, providing information on the effect of individual heterogeneity. By individual heterogeneity we mean unobserved factors that could influence the casual inferences on the determinants of individual height. Some if these effects could well be genetic effects, as well as unmeasured ability and other potentially relevant covariates.

Section snippets

Brief background of Spain 1920–2000

Spain is an interesting setting for the examination of changes in adult height because of the institutional and environmental reforms implemented. Overall, in half a century Spain has evolved from underdevelopment and authoritarianism to prosperity and democracy. The country's economic and socio-political reforms included economic liberalization after two decades of autarky (1939–1959) – and the subsequent reforms that introduced economic rights – but especially the effects of the political

Database and variables

We use data from the Spanish National Health Survey (SNHS) 2003,7 a nationwide cross-section survey which gathers information on the population's perception of their state of health, primary and specialized health care utilization, consumption of medicines, aspects of lifestyle (alcohol consumption, smoking, food, etc.), habits related to risk factors, anthropometric characteristics, preventive practices and

Preliminary evidence

Fig. 1 reports adult heights by age groups for both men and women in 1993 and 2003 in Spain. The principal differences in adult height suggest the existence of a birth cohort effect among those younger than 60 among men and younger than 50 among women. That is, in general younger generations are systematically taller, which has to take into account that individuals began to shrink at the age of 50. Indeed, the cross-cohort difference peaks at the ages of 40–49 for men and 30–39 for women.

Table 2

Discussion

This paper examines the time trend in human height for the Spanish adult population taking into account individual heterogeneity and a number of covariates in order to explore secular changes in health and the biological standard of living in Spain under different political regimes. It also explores gender dimorphism. We further find that these effects differ across genders and could explain part of the existing gender dimorphism in contemporary Spain. These results are consistent with the

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the comments of the journal anonymous referees but especially the amendments and suggestions from John Komlos. We also thank Joerg Baten, Jean Pascal Bassino, Arantxa Colchero, Nikola Koepke, Stephen. L. Morgan and participants at the Third International Conference on Economics and Human Biology, Strasbourg June 2006, for their comments and feedback. This study was supported by the Ministry of Education (Grant number: CICYT SEJ2005-06270) and the Generalitat de Catalunya

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