The Polish interbella puzzle
The biological standard of living in the Second Polish Republic, 1918-39
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4354180 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Michał Kopczyński (0000-0001-9529-6235, Michał Kopczyński University of Warsaw; Mateusz Rodak Polish Academy of Sciences, corresponding author), Mateusz Rodak (0000-0003-4665-6833, Michał Kopczyński University of Warsaw; Mateusz Rodak Polish Academy of Sciences) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 74 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 181-203 |
| Publication date | 2021-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Economic History Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/ehr.13046 |
| OpenAlex | W3112889536 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 40 |
The article aims to assess the importance of the timing of exposure to nutritional stress for adult stature. We test the hypothesis that exposure in adolescence (12 to 20 years of age) may have a more detrimental effect than exposure in infancy. To substantiate this, we analyse a sample of male prison inmates incarcerated in central Poland in the interwar period. We find that the secular trend in stature that had started in Poland in the 1860s was reversed in cohorts born between 1896 and 1904, who were exposed to nutritional stress during the First World War between the ages of 12 and 25 years. In comparison, wartime infants and toddlers did much better. In the improving economic conditions of the 1920s, they were able to undo the scars of war during their adolescence. The conclusion is corroborated by data concerning soldiers and conscripts to the Polish army. With regard to body mass index (BMI), we found that the trends among convicts and conscripts differ. This is caused by changes in the composition of the prison sample, related to the impact of the Great Depression. In summary, it seems that stature is a more robust proxy of well-being than BMI
Body mass index · Criminology · Geography · Prison · Proxy (statistics) · Secular variation · Sociology · World War II · Demography · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Medicine · Psychology · Gerontology
The full distribution of adult height in Poland
Wealth inequality in interwar Poland
Missing girls’ in interwar Poland
Income inequality in the Duchy of Warsaw (1810/11)
Economic growth and regional convergence in interwar Poland
The impact of hygienic living conditions on the differentiation of male body height at the beginning of the twentieth century in the USSR
Body Mass Index Through Time
The World Economy
Nutrition and Economic Development in the Eighteenth-Century Habsburg Monarchy
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A Life Course Approach to Chronic Disease Epidemiology
The Oxford Handbook of Economics and Human Biology
Anthropometric evidence on economic growth, biological well-being and regional convergence in the Habsburg Monarchy, c. 1850–1910
Temporary and lasting effects of childhood deprivation on male stature. Late adolescent stature and catch-up growth in Woerden (The Netherlands) in the first half of the nineteenth century
Secular trends in body height and body mass in 19‐year‐old polish men based on six national surveys from 1965 to 2010
Between the Great War and the Great Depression
Long run trends in the heights of European men, 19th–20th centuries
Shrinking in a growing economy is not so puzzling after all
The physical stature of Jewish men in Poland in the second half of the 19th century
Agrarian reforms, agrarian crisis and the biological standard of living in Poland, 1844–1892
Body mass index values of conscripts in the Polish lands under Prussian rule in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
Growing Tall but Unequal
The London School of Economics and Political Science
Shrinking in a Growing Economy? The Mystery of Physical Stature during the Industrial Revolution
A Peculiar Population
The Unobvious Impact of the First World War on the Height of Pupils in Cracow Schools in 1919–33
Sample-Selection Bias and Height Trends in the Nineteenth-Century United States
Sample-Selection Biases and the Industrialization Puzzle
Clarifications of a Puzzle
On the Biological Standard of Living in Russia and the Soviet Union
Biological Measures of the Standard of Living
The Impact of Urbanization on Stature and bmi in Poland
Children's growth in an adaptive framework
Toddlers, teenagers, and terminal heights
Hunger games
The secular trend in the biological standard of living in the United Kingdom, 1730-1860
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,5 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |