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Growing Incomes, Growing People in Nineteenth‐Century T asmania
Author(s) -
Inwood Kris,
MaxwellStewart Hamish,
Oxley Deborah,
Stankovich Jim
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
australian economic history review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.493
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1467-8446
pISSN - 0004-8992
DOI - 10.1111/aehr.12071
Subject(s) - gross domestic product , per capita , economics , demographic economics , urbanization , wage , population , product (mathematics) , interpretation (philosophy) , standard of living , development economics , labour economics , economic growth , demography , sociology , geometry , mathematics , computer science , programming language , market economy
The earliest measures of well‐being for E uropeans born in the P acific region are heights and wages in T asmania. Evidence of rising stature in middle decades of the nineteenth century survives multiple checks for measurement, compositional, and selection bias. The challenge to health and stature seen in other settler societies (the ‘antebellum paradox’) is not visible here. We sketch an interpretation for the simultaneous rise of T asmanian stature and per capita gross domestic product based on relatively slow population growth and urbanisation, a decline in food cost per family member available from a worker's wage, and early recognition of the importance of public health.