Generational effects and gender height dimorphism in contemporary Spain

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. #

Anthropometric Dividends of Czechoslovakia's Break Up

“…Spain among others (Costa-Font & Gil, 2008;Hiermeyer, 2008;Komlos & Kriwy, 2002;Komlos & Snowdon, 2005), the results suggest that the transition period did not have a detrimental effect on health and standard of living as heights have continued to increase in both countries. Given the difficulty of disentangling the effects of transition to democracy and the break up, the remaining of the discussion focuses on the results for democracy; results for independence were very similar.…”

“…The level of education achieved is an important determinant of the individual's height. It is important to note that most of the height literature focuses on parental education as a key determinant (Christiaensen & Alderman, 2004;Fedorov & Sahn, 2005) so the education of the individual in this context was a proxy for the individual's capabilities and the importance of schooling on health behaviour (Costa-Font & Gil, 2008;Donald S. Kenkel, 1991). There is no consistent country effect across the models.…”

“…Education (educ) is used as a proxy of individual abilities and a predictor of an individual's efficiency in health production (Costa-Font & Gil, 2008;D.S. Kenkel, 1991).…”

“…It is presented in four categories from those with less than primary education completed all the way to those with a post-graduate degree completed. In addition, we control for urban and rural differences in height as those in urban areas are more likely to have easy access to resources (Costa-Font & Gil, 2008 press, and so on are means to, or specific manifestations of, these general principles (Center for Systemic Peace). The "Polity Score" ranges from -10 (hereditary monarchy) to 10 (consolidated democracy) in any given year and was used to weigh the years spent under democracy.…”

“…Institutional reforms such as a transition to a market economy engender substantive changes (Collins and Rodrik, 1991), and may lead to social changes including the stimulation of risk taking and the alteration of attitudes towards work all potentially exerting an influence on environmental health effects and ultimately can enhancing an influence on wellbeing in the long run (Costa-Font & Gil, 2008). More specifically, following the "fit through democracy" (Sen, 1999) hypothesis, democracy may lead to the inception of institutions that make children and adolescents' existence safer and healthier, and thus are expected to be positively associated with height.…”