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Cities, market integration and going to sea: stunting and the standard of living in early nineteenth century England and Wales

Humphries, Jane and Leunig, Tim (2009) Cities, market integration and going to sea: stunting and the standard of living in early nineteenth century England and Wales. Economic History Review, 62 (2). pp. 458-478. ISSN 0013-0117

Full text not available from this repository.
Identification Number: 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2008.00458.x

Abstract

A new source, 1840s Admiralty seamen's tickets, is used to explore three anthropometric issues. First, did being born in a city, with its associated disamenities, lead to stunting? Second, did being born near a city, whose markets sucked away foodstuffs, lead to stunting? Third, did child labour lead to stunting? We find that only those born in very large cities suffered a level of stunting that contemporaries could have observed. Being born near a city, which gave parents opportunities to trade away family calories, and perhaps increased exposure to disease, did not cause stunting. Britain was a well-integrated market; all families, whatever their locations, had options to trade and faced similar disease environments. Finally, although adults who had gone to sea young were shorter than those who did not enlist until fully grown, going to sea did not stunt. Instead, plentiful food at sea attracted stunted adolescents, who reversed most of their stunting as a result. But child labour at sea was different from other forms of children's work because wages were largely hypothecated to the child as food and shelter onboard. In contrast, where wages were paid to the child or his parents in cash, they became submerged in the household economy and their benefits were shared with other family members.

Item Type: Article
Official URL: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/1185092...
Additional Information: © 2010 Economic History Society
Divisions: Economic History
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions
Date Deposited: 22 Dec 2009 10:54
Last Modified: 14 Feb 2024 04:39
URI: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/26346

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