Anthropometric History , Gender and the Measurement of Well - Being

During the last two decades, economic and social historians have often used height and other anthropometric indicators to investigate the well-being of earlier generations. Although much of this research has focused specifically on the heights and weights of men, there is also a growing body of evidence relating to women and to children of both sexes, and this work has enabled anthropometric historians to pay increasing attention to the distribution of resources within households and to the question of gender. This paper draws on this material to examine some of the main changes in the well-being of males and females in Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.