Weight and Welfare of Australians, 1890–1940

Bibliographic Data

ID20437383
AuthorsGreg Whitwell (0000-0003-0131-2375, The University of Melbourne), Stephen Nichola (0000-0001-6770-7105, The University of Melbourne), Stephen Nicholas
Year2001
Volume41
Issue2
Pages159-175
Publication date2001-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAustralian Economic History Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0004-8992 • E-ISSN: 1467-8446
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-8446.00080
PMID18183674
OpenAlexW1996508095
LanguageEN
Citations received11

Views differ on whether living standards in Australia improved between 1890 and 1940. The pessimists, relying principally on product and incomes measures, argue that living standards stagnated; the optimists, using augmented measures of well‐being, argue that living standards may have improved. This paper contributes to this debate between the pessimists and optimists by using alternative measures of living standards, namely the height and body mass index (BMI) of male Australian army recruits of World Wars I and II. The nature and usefulness of these measures is examined. The major findings are that the height data indicate an unequivocal improvement in living standards in the period under consideration. The BMI data tend to support a similar conclusion, but the results are ambiguous and there are difficulties in using them alone to determine exactly what happened to living standards

Activities of daily living · Demographic economics · Economics · Index (typography) · Pessimism · Political science · Product (mathematics) · Standard of living · Welfare · Australian History and Society · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law · Mathematics · Psychology

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