Height inequality and socioeconomic implications in Korea: analysis of individuals born between 1890 and 1919.

This study examined height inequality as an indicator of income inequality during the colonial period (1910-1945) in Korea. Data were taken from a sample of 1796 male prisoners from a wide range of geographical locations and with varied socioeconomic backgrounds. Height inequality was measured using the coefficient of variation of height (CV) for each birth decade. The results indicated that height inequality, as measured by the CV, increased slightly from 3.32 to 3.35 for the birth decades 1890-99 and 1900-09, then jumped to 3.50 for the birth decade 1910-19. Considering the Kuznets curve, the presented results have socioeconomic implications for Japan's impact in Korea, at least during the early colonial period.

The Impact of Parental Death in Childhood on Sons' and Daughters' Status Attainment in Young Adulthood in the Netherlands, 1850-1952.

Previous research on the impact of parental loss on labor market outcomes in adulthood has often suffered from low sample sizes. To generate further insights into the long-term consequences of parental death, I use the Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN). The HSN contains occupational information on life courses of a sample of more than 8,000 males and almost 7,000 females born between 1850 and 1922, a period of important labor market transformations. Roughly 20 % of the sample population experienced parental death before age 16. Linear regression models show that maternal loss is significantly associated with lower occupational position in adulthood for both men and women, which points to the crucial importance of maternal care in childhood for socioeconomic outcomes in later life. This interpretation is supported by the finding that a stepmother's entry into the family is positively related with sons' occupational position later in life. In contrast to expectations, the loss of economic resources related to the father's death is generally not associated with lower status attainment in adulthood for men or for women. The results indicate, however, that the negative consequences of paternal death on men's socioeconomic outcomes decreased over time, illustrating the complex interaction between individual life courses and surrounding labor market transformations.

Multigenerational Effects of Early-Life Health Shocks.

A large literature has documented links between harmful early-life exposures and later-life health and socioeconomic deficits. These studies, however, have typically been unable to examine the possibility that these shocks are transmitted to the next generation. Our study uses representative survey data from the United States to trace the impacts of in utero exposure to the 1918 influenza pandemic on the outcomes of the children and grandchildren of those affected. We find evidence of multigenerational effects on educational, economic, and health outcomes.

Inequality among industrial workers in the late 19th century United States.

This paper uses the large cross sectional survey of 8544 workers in nine industries (pig iron, bar iron, steel, coal, coke, cottons, woolens, and glass) in the United States and five European countries (Belgium, Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Switzerland) to examine inequality in the industrial working class in the late nineteenth century. The paper looks at incomes, the food budget share (estimated using the Almost Ideal Demand System), and home ownership. The results show regular gradients with the unskilled workers doing less well than semi-skilled and skilled workers. Despite the lack of proprietors, farmers, and other groups with significant income from property, such surveys can be useful in the study of the historical aspects of inequality.

Shrinking in a growing economy is not so puzzling after all.

Bodenhorn, Guinnane, and Mroz (2017) argue that the diminution of heights during the Industrial Revolution and in the Antebellum U.S. is an artefact of the biased nature of the samples analyzed. We demonstrate that it would be an unfathomable coincidence if men and women all self-selected into scores of completely independent samples in such a way as to bias them in the identical direction. Instead, wWe show that BGM's periodization is flawed and that their statistical models are misspecified, because they fail to consider the extent to which they introduce severe multicollinearity into their regressions. In addition, they fail to specify how they selected the samples they included in their analysis. In contrast, we argue that the economic transition from a predominantly agricultural to an increasingly industrial society was not a smooth process and lags in adjustment led to nutritional stresses. Height of a typical man in the U.S. decreased by 0.75 inches at a time when incomes were growing at a rate of 1.2% per annum. The developing human body of children and youth was sensitive enough to these nutritional stresses to register their effect better than monetary measures could. While nutritional status did decline during the Industrial Revolution in Europe and at the onset of modern economic in the U.S., by the second half of the 19th century agricultural productivity caught up with the increased demand for foodstuffs and height reversals became a rarity. Thus, although markets adjusted, they did not do so instantaneously. Consequently, physical stature declined during this adjustment process although the wealthy were shielded from the increased price of nutrients. So, the divergence in average incomes and average heights at the threshold of the modern age is not so puzzling after all.

Health and economic development since 1900.

The 20th century has brought unprecedented gains in health. While these have improved citizens' lives worldwide, progress has been uneven and have in turn led to substantial cross-country health inequalities. This article looks at the effects of these inequalities on between-country economic inequality since 1900 using a level accounting framework that includes life expectancy as an important part of human capital besides education. The main results show that health has been a historically important source of cross-country income variation. In 1900 and 1955, differences in life expectancy accounted for almost 20 percent and a quarter of between-country income inequality. In addition, I find that the reduction of cross-country health differentials between mid-20th century and 1990 was an important source of income convergence. In a counterfactual exercise, I show that between-country income inequality would have been almost 20 percent higher nowadays, had the process of health convergence after 1955 not taken place. Finally, I find that the relative importance of health for income levels has stayed constant in the last three decades due to a deceleration in the rate of health convergence.

Biological welfare and the commons: A natural experiment in the Alps, 1765-1845.

In the late 18th century hundreds self-governing alpine communities in Northern Italy came under the direct control of centralized states (Austria and France) at different times. We exploit the timing and location of these interventions in a DD type design to investigate the effects of removing CPR institutions on biological welfare. We find a significant and persistent increase in infant mortality rates and a more modest decrease in birth rates as a result of state centralization. We provide evidence that these demographic changes reflect a critical loss of natural resource income caused by the disruption of communal institutions. Impacts are most severe in communities that have no prior experience with formal institutions.

Malthus in the Bedroom: Birth Spacing as Birth Control in Pre-Transition England.

We use duration models on a well-known historical data set of more than 15,000 families and 60,000 births in England for the period 1540-1850 to show that the sampled families adjusted the timing of their births in accordance with the economic conditions as well as their stock of dependent children. The effects were larger among the lower socioeconomic ranks. Our findings on the existence of parity-dependent as well as parity-independent birth spacing in England are consistent with the growing evidence that marital birth control was present in pre-transitional populations.

The marriage boom and marriage bust in the United States: An age-period-cohort analysis.

In the 1950s and 1960s there was an unprecedented marriage boom in the United States. This was followed in the 1970s by a marriage bust. Some argue that both phenomena are cohort effects, while others argue that they are period effects. The study reported here tested the major period and cohort theories of the marriage boom and bust, by estimating an age-period-cohort model of first marriage for the years 1925-79 using census microdata. The results of the analysis indicate that the marriage boom was mostly a period effect, although there were also cohort influences. More specifically, the hypothesis that the marriage boom was mostly a response to rising wages is shown to be consistent with the data. However, much of the marriage bust can be accounted for by unidentified cohort influences, at least until 1980.

Social Class and Income Inequality in the United States: Ownership, Authority, and Personal Income Distribution from 1980 to 2010.

This study outlines a theory of social class based on workplace ownership and authority relations, and it investigates the link between social class and growth in personal income inequality since the 1980s. Inequality trends are governed by changes in between-class income differences, changes in the relative size of different classes, and changes in within-class income dispersion. Data from the General Social Survey are used to investigate each of these changes in turn and to evaluate their impact on growth in inequality at the population level. Results indicate that between-class income differences grew by about 60% since the 1980s and that the relative size of different classes remained fairly stable. A formal decomposition analysis indicates that changes in the relative size of different social classes had a small dampening effect and that growth in between-class income differences had a large inflationary effect on trends in personal income inequality.

Financial Capability in Early Social Work Practice: Lessons for Today.

During the profession's first decades, social workers tried to improve their clients' financial capability (FC). This article describes the methods used by early social workers who attempted to enhance the FC of their clients, based on contemporary descriptions of their practice. Social workers initially emphasized thrift, later adding more sophisticated consideration of the cost of foods, rent, and other necessities. Social work efforts were furthered by home economists, who served as specialists in nutrition, clothing, interior design, and other topics related to homemaking. Early home economists included specialists in nutrition and family budgeting; these specialists worked with social services agencies to provide a financial basis for family budgets and assisted clients with family budgeting. Some agencies engaged home economists as consultants and as direct providers of instruction on home budgets for clients. By the 1930s, however, social work interest in family budget problems focused on the psychological meaning of low income to the client, rather than in measures to increase client FC. Consequently, social workers' active engagement with family budget issues­engagement that characterized earlier decades­faded. These early efforts can inform contemporary practice as social workers are once again concerned about improving their clients' FC.

Patriarchy, Power, and Pay: The Transformation of American Families, 1800-2015.

This article proposes explanations for the transformation of American families over the past two centuries. I describe the impact on families of the rise of male wage labor beginning in the nineteenth century and the rise of female wage labor in the twentieth century. I then examine the effects of decline in wage labor opportunities for young men and women during the past four decades. I present new estimates of a precipitous decline in the relative income of young men and assess its implications for the decline for marriage. Finally, I discuss explanations for the deterioration of economic opportunity and speculate on the impact of technological change on the future of work and families.

Where's the capital? A geographical essay.

This paper is inspired by Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Piketty does a wonderful job of tracing income and wealth over time, and relating changes to trends of economic and population growth, and drawing out the implications for inequality, inheritance and even democracy. But, he says relatively little about where capital is located, how capital accumulation in one place relies on activities elsewhere, how capital is urbanized with advanced capitalism and what life is like in spaces without capital. This paper asks 'where is the geography in Capital' or 'where is the geography of capital in Capital'? Following Piketty's lead, the paper develops its analysis through a number of important novels. It examines, first, the debate that Jane Austen ignored colonialism and slavery in her treatment of nineteenth century Britain, second, how Balzac and then Zola provide insight to the urban political economy of capital later in the century, and third, how Katherine Boo attends to inequality as the everyday suffering of the poor.