Among the eight countries studied in Health and Welfare During Industrialisation, all but Germany have some military height data that cover small portions of the pre-industrial era.
In the absence of detailed information, economic historians may tend to view the pre-industrial world as a vague but homogeneous lump defined by its heavy reliance on agriculture, the preponderance of home manufacturing, and antiquated methods of production.
Table 9.1 shows, however, that on the eve of industrialization, average heights ranged widely from 155 cm in Japan to approximately 173 cm in the United States and Australia. Most European countries clustered near 164 or 165 cm, but the Swedes reached 168 cm.In all but the United States, the pre-industrial populations were also smaller, often by several centimetres depending upon the exact years of the comparisons. Considering the pre-industrial and middle phases, for example, the height differences shown in Table 9.1 were about 2 cm in France, roughly 4 cm in Japan, the Netherlands and Sweden, and about 5 cm in Britain (but note that average heights declined significantly in Britain for cohorts born in the 1840s and early 1850s). Average heights in the United States were about 3 cm lower in the middle compared with pre-industrial times.
What were the important socio-economic conditions affecting pre-industrial heights? It would seem appropriate to begin with mechanisms that were powerful in explaining height differences during industrialization—urbanization and abundant access to land. The two countries with the tallest people (Australia and the United States) score well on the latter category and Sweden was the tallest and least congested of the European countries. Access to land tended to ameliorate poverty, helped promote dietary diversity and reduced the spread of disease by lowering population density. Countries with the shortest populations were relatively urban, a feature long known to have impaired health. Australians were tall despite a large (30%) urban population, likely because the cities were isolated from each other and from much of the rest of the world.
If low urbanization and low population density were good for health, it is a fair question to ask why so many of the pre-industrial populations were so short, compared with their industrial counterparts. After all, the adverse factors of urbanization and population density tended to increase with industrialization. With the exception of the United States and Britain in the late industrial phase, there must have been something good for health about industrialization that more than offset the features that were bad.
4.1