(2017) Ramón Muñoz, Ramón; Ramón Muñoz, Josep Maria
This paper aims to explore whether and to what extent there was a gap in biological
living standards between rural and urban areas. It
focuses on the north-eastern
Iberian region of Catalonia by making use of a new
and large dataset (more than
16,000 observations) based on military records for
the cohort of males born in the
year 1890 and enlisted in the year 1911. By combining individual heights with
information at municipal level, we conclude that the 1890 cohort of conscripts
living in villages and towns up to 5,000 inhabitant
s were shorter than those that
resided in towns and cities with more than 20,000 people. We also show that the
relationship between height and population size may vary depending on the
geographical area under study. This might suggest the existence of a qualified rural
height penalty in late nineteenth-century Catalonia.