Abstract
The central question in this special issue is a relatively new one in
anthropometric history: how did body height affect the life course?
This raises the issue of whether such an effect merely captures the
underlying early-life conditions that impact growth, or whether some
independent effect of stature can be discerned. Further, the effects of
height on later-life outcomes need not be linear. These effects may
also differ by gender, by context (time and place), and among life
course domains such as occupational success, family formation or
health in later life. The ten research articles in this issue use
a plethora of historical sources on individuals, such as prison and
hospital records, conscript records, genealogies and health surveys.
These articles employ a variety of methods to distinguish between
early-life and later-life effects, between intra- and intergenerational
processes and between biological and socio-economic factors.
Importantly, all articles discuss the impact of the specific context on
their results to understand these effects. The overall conclusion is that
independent later-life outcomes of height are rather ambiguous, and
seem to stem more from the perception of physical strength, health
and intelligence associated with height than from height itself. This
special issue also reflects on intergenerational effects of the later-life
outcomes of height. As populations have grown taller, it is possible
that height and later-life outcomes have formed a ‘virtuous cycle’,
resulting in taller, healthier and wealthier populations. So far, however,
our research offers little support for this hypothesis.
