Overpopulation and malnutrition rediscovered: Hard times in 19th-century Sweden

EXPLORATIONS

IN ECONOMIC

HISTORY

25,

1-19

(1988)

Overpopulation and Malnutrition Rediscovered: Hard Time’s in 19th~Century Sweden* LARS G. SANDBERG AND RICHARD H. STECKEL Department

of Economics,

Ohio

State

University

This paper utilizes data on human heights to shed light on economic conditions in Sweden around the middle of the 19th century. We note a decline in heights starting with cohorts born around 1840, especially in “western” Sweden. We also note a sharp increase in child, but not adult, mortality starting in the late 1840s. These phenomena are reconciled with evidence of a concurrent, albeit quite modest, growth in per capita income by a shift in the distribution of income. This shift placed an increasing percentage of Swedish children, especially in the densely populated and child intensive West, in households with incomes barely at the subsistence level, even in good times. Q 1988AcademicPRSS,hc.

INTRODUCTION Despite the most complete set of historical records of any nation on earth, important features of the pre-1870 Swedish economy remain shrouded in uncertainty. The level and rate of growth of per capita GNP, personal income, and levels of nutrition all are the subjects of debate. Indeed, the period between circa 1815 and 1870, perhaps because it is the most recent part of the unilluminated past and because it immediately preceded the emergence of the modern Swedish economy and society, is the subject of particular contention. Views on the levels of income and economic welfare during this period have traditionally been dominated by two opposing sets of observations. On the pessimistic side were, until recently, living memories of the acute poverty of the period, many of them also recorded in literary works. On a more quantitative level, there is the undoubted explosive growth of * We are particularly grateful to John Komlos, Stephen Kunitz, Roger Schofield, J. M. Tanner, the participants at the 1985 Social Science History Association meetings, and two anonymous referees for their comments. Some of the material in this paper has also been discussed in seminars at the Universities of Illinois, Indiana, Lund, Uppsala, and Stockholm. Finally, the helpfulness of the personnel at Krigsarkivet in Stockholm is gratefully acknowledged. 0014-4983188 $3.00 CopyrightQ 1988by AcademicPress,Inc. All rightsof reproduction in any formreserved.

2

SANDBERG

AND STECKEL

the landless and virtually landless classes of society-the process known as “agricultural proletarization.” Between 1750 and 1815 the agricultural proletariat appears to have increased from about 350,000 persons to approximately 700,000 persons. By 1850 this number was over 1.3 million, and it had not yet peaked. In percentage terms, the group had increased from around 20% of the population in 1750 to nearly 40% in 1850 (Carlsson, 1961, p. 79). The positive side of the historical ledger, however, also has some important entries. To begin with, there are the improvements in agricultural organization and technique that certainly occurred. Such improvements can be noted in the form of enclosures, new crops, especially the potato as a field crop, new rotations, better equipment, and the systematic breeding of animals (Carlsson, 1961, pp. 40-48; Bengtsson and Ohlsson, 1985, p. 313). The great export boom in oats to fuel the London transport system also played a role. In addition, advances in industry and transport were beginning to accumulate. These positive aspects of the period are generally confirmed by demographic data. While occasional setbacks did occur, most spectacularly as a result of the arrival of cholera in the 1850s and the subsistance crisis of 1867-1868, mortality certainly was trending down. This ambiguity in the historical record is reflected in the judgments expressed by Eli Heckscher. In his classic work, An Economic History of Sweden (1954), he refers both to “the pauperization of the Swedish rural population around the middle of the 19th century” (p. 172) and to his view that “the whole (19th) century was one of extraordinary dynamism compared to earlier periods” (p. 216). During more recent years the judgments of Swedish economic historians on the period have continued to embody this uncertainty. Two major works that are rather optimistic will be cited here. First there is Sture Martinius’ study of agriculture and growth in Sweden between 1830 and 1870. His principal conclusion, at least for the purposes of this paper, is that agricultural output per worker, after having remained essentially constant for a century up to 1830, increased at an annual rate of approximately 0.7% between circa 1835 and 1870 (Martinius, 1971, p. 604). It should be noted, however, that Martinius has been criticized for basing his conclusion on the growth of gross, not net, agricultural production. Thus to the extent that purchased inputs-machinery, commercial feedstuffs, chemical fertilizers, etc.-came to play an increasingly important role during this period, Martinius’ per worker output figures tend to give a somewhat exaggerated impression of the growth of per capita output in the entire economy (Fritz, 1971, p. 612). Another major study we will discuss is Lennatt J&-berg’s monumental and detailed examination of Swedish prices between 1732 and 1914 (J&berg, 1972). Among the prices he studied were the wages of day laborers in

OVERPOPULATION

AND MALNUTRITION

IN SWEDEN

3

agriculture. From the vast amount of price data at his :disposal, J&berg was able to construct a series of the real wage of such workers. He summarizes his results for the 19th century as follows: “a large increase, or rather a recovery, until about 1820, a slight reduction until about 1850 and then a large increase up to 1914” (J&berg, 1972, Vol. 2, p. 337). He also fitted a quadratic equation to real wages for the entire 17321914 period. This equation bottoms out in 1800, thus implying an upward trend for the entire 19th century (Jorberg, 1972, Vol. 2, p. 328). Furthermore, work on Swedish GNP before 1870 currently being done at the Institute of Economic History at Lund reportedly concludes that Swedish GNP before 1870 has been seriously underestimated, especially with regard to agricultural output. Our purpose in this paper is to add a large sample of one type of historical data, human heights, to revise another source of information, J&berg’s real wage series, and to then draw some implications from this new and revised data. We tend to arrive at a somewhat more pessimistic view of the period than is currently fashionable, but we are certainly not claiming that we have resolved all the existing ambiguities. HUMAN HEIGHT

DATA

Our new supply of data comes from a study of the heights of Swedish soldiers born from ,between the 1720s and the latter part of the 19th century. Human heights measure net nutrition, that is actual diet minus the claims on the diet made by maintenance, work, and disease.’ Nutrition during the first several years of life and during the adolescent growth spurt are of particular importance to adult height.2 The fact that two periods of life, separated by approximately a decade, are those most sensitive to levels of nutrition complicates ,the drawing of inferences concerning short-run variations in nutrition from changes in heights between cohorts born in different years. Long-run trends in height, however, are unquestionably related to trends in nutrition and health. Particularly for periods and locations where incomes were low, moreover, nutrition was closely related to the level and distribution, of income (Steckel 1983). Indeed, it can be argued that for such periods and places height trends, reflecting trends in net nutrition and health,: are at least as good, even if somewhat different, a measure of popular economic welfare as any ’ Early work using human heights to investigate particular problems in economic history with the health of American slaves as well as with methodological questions. See Trusseli and Steckel (1978) and Steckel (1979). For an earlier discussion of heights in Sweden, see Sandberg and Steckel (1980). For a recent survey of the status of this type of research, see Fogel er al. (1983). 2 The substantial recovery from extraordinary childhood deprivation by American slaves demonstrates the importance of conditions during adolescence to adult height (Steckel. 1986, 1987). dealt

4

SANDBERG

Distribution Region East West North Stockholm Total N Sources.

AND STECKEL

TABLE 1 of Entire Population in 1840 and of Recruits Aged 25-49 Who Were Born between 1830 and 1849 Population

(%)

Recruits (%)

25.1 65.5 6.1 2.1 100.0 3,138,887 Muster rolls and Statistiska Centralby&

24.3 30.0 21.7 23.9 99.9 2180 (1969), p. 50.

income series that could ever be constructed for such a time and place. Since heights reflect health and thus ability to perform work, such series also have implications for the measurement of human capital supplies and therefore of the capacity to produce economic goods and services. Our study of the changing heights of the Swedish population is based on a sample of approximately 40,000 soldiers of all ages who served in the Swedish army between roughly 1730 and 1890. The great mass of these soldiers served in the so-called “settled” (indelta) provincial regiments. Except in wartime, these soldiers only performed military duties on a part-time basis. The rest of their work time was devoted to exploiting the croft they received from the local land owning peasants (for the latter, a substitute for monetary land taxes) as part of their military pay or else as day laborers for others. The soldiers of a given provincial regiment lived and worked in crofts scattered across that province. In social and economic terms, the soldiers were on a par with the other crofters, that is, at the top of the “agricultural proletariat.” Below them were all the various categories of landless rural residents. We selected a random sample of provincial regiments. This sample contains regiments from different parts of the country, however defined. Most importantly, we obtained a distribution of regiments across the three geographic zones into which Sweden traditionally has been divided. In addition we included one regiment of full-time soldiers from the standing army. These soldiers lived in barracks or other accommodations in the city of Stockholm. Table 1 shows the percentage distribution of soldiers in our national sample compared to the percentage distribution of the entire population in the 19th century. We deliberately oversampled in the North and in Stockholm in order to obtain sufficient observations for analysis. On the other hand, we have implicitly assumed that the regions themselves are homogeneous. Our samples contain soldiers who resided in counties containing 55.6% each of the populations of the North and of

OVERPOPULATION

AND MALNUTRITION

IN SWEDEN

5

the East and 60.5% of the West. Furthermore, at least in the East and in the West, these counties do not form contiguous areas. The actual records utilized were the regimental muster rolls prepared at fairly regular intervals for each regiment and now located in the War Archives (Krigsarkivet) in Stockholm. These rolls give the name, birthplace, birthdate, date of enlistment, and height of the soldier occupying each military croft (in the case of the Stockholm regiment, each numbered position in the regiment). We sampled this massive data base by randomly drawing a given number of soldier positions from each roll. If the position drawn was vacant, the observation was dropped. For those periods when rolls were drawn up every 3 years, a sample of 60 was drawn from each roll. When the time lapse between rolls was greater, the size of the sample was increased proportionately. The system was designed to minimize the number of duplicate observations. In a few cases, however, the same soldier did enter the sample twice. In such cases, one of the observations, of course, was dropped.3 One of the great advantages of this data source is that the rolls overlap. Thus it is pos,sible to compare the measurement recorded for a particular soldier in a given year with the height recorded for him in the previous roll. By comparing overlapping samples of soldiers between every muster roll from the beginning of the period to the end, it can be established that no substantial change in measuring technique was introduced during the entire period. In particular, since it.is known that the soldiers were measured barefoot at the end of the period, we can also be certain that they were measured barefoot on all previous occasions. The records make it clear that virtually all the soldiers in the provincial regiments were born in that particular province or in immediately adjoining areas. Indeed, it was quite common for a soldier to take over a military croft from his soldier father. Of the Stockholm regiment, approximately 20% were born in Stockholm, another 20% were born in other cities, while the remainder came from all over the country, Of course, a substantial number of the non-Stockholm natives had no doubt moved to Stockholm some considerable time before their enlistment, which usually occurred in theirlate teens. Stockholm at this time was still dependent on immigration to maintain, much less increase, its population. For purposes of estimating the trend in final adult heights, we limited our sample to individuals who were at, least 25, but not yet 49, years old at the time of measurement. Thus we eliminated all individuals who ’ There is also the question of the representativeness of the military for the entire adult male population. Work is in progress to address this issue using data discussed in Sandberg and Steckel (1987).

6

SANDBERG

AND STECKEL

might still have some growth remaining as well as those who might have begun to shrink with age. Of course, raw military height data are often beset by a major problem: The military tends to impose minimum height standards, or at least stricter general standards on those who are unusually short4 Furthermore, those who are rejected for health reasons tend to be shorter than those who are accepted for military service. Thus the distribution of heights among full-grown military personnel is an “eroded” version of the true underlying height distribution. That is, persons of heights below some level are under-represented in the military sample. The statistical problem thus becomes one of filling in for the missing short soldiers. Doing so lets us obtain an unbiased estimator of the average height of the entire male adult population. The particular method we used is the so-called “quantile-bend” estimator. The principal assumptions on which this method is based are (1) that erosion is limited to one tail of the distribution and (2) that the underlying population is in fact normahy distributed (Wachter 1981, p. 33; Wachter and Trussell, 1982). In order to get a general impression of conditions in Sweden, we began by arranging the observations in a succession of overlapping birth cohorts of 5 years each (1730-1734, 1731-1736, etc.).5 Then the quantile-bend estimator was used to adjust for erosion of the lower tail of the height distribution caused by minimum height standards. The resulting series (presented on an annual basis in Sandberg and Steckel, 1987. Fig. 1) indicates that height increased from birth cohorts centered in the 1730s until the one centered in 1770. There then followed a period of decreases in heights for later cohorts until those born around 1785 were reached, at which point a new period of increase took over. This period is followed, after circa 1820, by stagnation until circa 1840 when a decline occurs. For a number of statistical reasons, including a regional weighting problem, as well as questions of historical interpretation, we then divided the data on the basis of the three demographic zones discovered by the well-known Swedish demographer Gustav Sundbarg. These areas are, or at least are called, East, West, and North Sweden (Emigrationsutredningen, 1913, p. 225). Our only adjustment in Sundbarg’s regions 4 Since the soldier positions were numbered from 1 to (usually) 1200, we sampled by randomly drawing a number between 1 and 20 if we wanted a sample of 60. If, for example, we drew the number 12, we would then include soldiers number 12, 32, 52, etc. If we wanted a larger sample per regiment, we drew a number between 1 and n where n was less than 20. To avoid duplication, we rejected any number that had been drawn for rolls of the previous 30 years and drew again. 5 The sample includes about 16,500 soldiers born between the 1720s and the 1850s. Most of the five-year cohorts include about 600 to 900 observations, although the numbers near the beginning and the end of the period are smaller. This is so because the early cohorts disproportionately include elderly soldiers while the last cohorts disproportionately contain young men.

OVERPOPULATION

AND MALNUTRITION

IN SWEDEN

7

162 160 t .4

.t I

I

I

I

1830

1835

1840

1845

YEAR

1850

OF BIRTH

FIG. 1. Fifteen-year moving average of heights at ages 25-49 by region, adjusted for minimum height standards.

was to move the northwestern county of Jamtland from the East (!) to the North region. We also treated Stockholm as a separate urban, and especially unhealthy, environment. In order to acquire sufficient observations for the regional analysis, the successive, overlapping cohorts were arranged in groups of 15 years each. The results, shown graphically in Fig 1, generally confirm the national picture, including the decline for post-1840 cohorts. This decline is least noticeable in the East but it is clearly discernible in the West. The results for the 1818-1856 period given in Table 2 are striking for the individual regions. A decline in adjusted heights of about 2 in. in the West and a small decline in Stockholm were offset by improvements in TABLE 2 Heights in Inches at Ages 25-49 by Region and Year of Birth 1818-1837

1838-1856

Region

Mean”

SD

N

Mean”

SD

N

East West North Stockholm

66.61 67.77 66.87 65.25

2.44 2.46 2.82 2.57

584 904 571 733

67.82 65.75 67.76 64.90

2.04 2.37 2.53 2.53

313 400 409 243

Total

66.33

2.82

2792

66.71

2.71

1365

Sources. Muster rolls. a Estimated using the quantile-bend method. See Wachter and Trussell (1982) and Wachter (1981).

8

SANDBERG

AND STECKEL

the East and the North, giving a slight improvement overalL Data in Table 3 show that shifts in the entire height distribution generally underlie the pattern of estimated average heights. Change3 in the share of the distribution at 70 in. and above, for example, follow the distribution of the change in estimated heights within each region. At this point it is appropriate to discus3 the characteristics of the various zone3 established by Sundbarg based on demographic patterns observed during the preindustrial era. Geographically speaking, West and East are not very accurate descriptions. The West zone, in fact include3 all of southern Sweden, from the east coast to the west coast. The West zone might better have been called the high fertility-high population growth zone and the East the low fertility-low population growth zone. This fertility difference existed despite the fact that the West had a lower rate of marriage than did the East. Over the long term, mortality rates were about the Same, on average perhaps slightly lower in the West. The distribution of population was such that approximately 65% of the population lived in the West with most of the rest living in the East. The North was very sparsely populated (Statistiska Centralbymn, 1969, p. 69). Generally speaking, the East was the region of large estates while most the West was dominated by peasant holdings. Finally, the West includes those province3 which led the way in emigration to the United States in the period after 1860-Smaland, Varmland, and Halland. DEMOGRAPHIC

DATA

As noted above, Swedish mortality generally declined throughout the period 1810-1870, as well as thereafter. The one startling exception to this trend was the sharp increase in the mortality rate of children, although not of infants, that occurred starting in the late 1840s. Although the decadal grouping of the data does not make it as clear as might be wished, things were particularly bad from the late 1840s through the middle of the 18.50s. The crisis, however, was not overcome until after the subsistence disaster of the late 18603. Although noticeable even for young adults, the mortality reversal was especially concentrated in the 1 to 9 age-group (see Table 4). This increase in child mortality rate3 had little effect on overall mortality. There was only a slight increase during the 1850s after which the longrun decline resumed. Furthermore, even this modest increase in total mortality is often linked to the appearance of cholera in Sweden during the 18.50s. Even though cholera killed a lot of people, however, most of those to succumb were adults. Furthermore, despite this new killer, the 6 The quantile-bend adjustment is likely to become more important when the population becomes shorter. This is certainly the case unless military standards are being reduced sufficiently to prevent an increase in sample erosion.

0.1

0.0

Total, 1818-1837

Total, 1838-1856

-

Source.

Muster rolls.

0.0 0.0 0.1 0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0

0.0

1838-1856

West,

North, 1818-1837 North, 1838-1856 Stockholm, 1818-1837 Stockholm, 1838-1856

60-61

0.0 0.0 0.0

Under 60

0.0 0.0 0.1

East, 1818-1837 East, 1838-1856 West, 1818-1837

Region and time period

The Distribution

0.1

0.2

0.0 0.1 0.4

0.2 0.0 0.4

0.0 0.0

62-63

- .-__

12.1

10.2

3.3 4.5 8.9 9.0 6.1 6.8 20.6 35.8

64-65

42.6

43.2

39.1 53.1 45.1

40.1

40.4 39.9 39.0 46.5

66-67

26.6

28.4

39.9 37.7 27.8 25.0 29.9 28.1 19.0 12.3

68-69 -

14.9 __-

14.9

15.5 19.3 20.3 6.4 4.5

19.9

15.3

13.9

70-71

3.2

2.7

2.2 2.6 4.2 3.3 3.7 5.1 0.5 0.8

72-73

0.4

0.3

0.4

0.1

0.3 0.0 0.3 0.8 0.5 0.5

74 and above

TABLE 3 of Heights in Inches at Ages 25-49 by Region and Year of Birth

99.9

100.0

99.9 99.9 99.9

19.6

18.5

17.9

23.5 25.9 7.0 5.7

100.1 100.0

1365

2792

904 400 571 409 733 243

313 24.4

584

17.9

N 16.4

_I_-

70 and above

100.4

100.0 100.0

Total

10

SANDBERGANDSTECKEL TABLE 4 Annual Child Mortality in Sweden, 1801-1810 to 1871-1880, per Thousand per Annual Cohort

Decade/Age

l-2 years

3-4 years

lSOl/lSlO 1811/1820 1821-1830 1831-1840 1841-1850 1851-1860 1861-1870 1871-1880

52.47 51.54 39.27 36.91 34.10 40.42 41.18 34.06

23.81 20.21 15.75 14.70 15.62 21.42 21.0s 17.60

1801-1810 1811-1820 1821-1830 1831-1840 1841-1850 1851-1860 1861-1870 1871-1880

48.69 47.35 35.95 34.13 31.17 37.07 38.54 32.21

22.63 19.38 15.20 13.78 14.34 19.78 20.23 17.06

Source. Statistiska Centralbyr&r

5-9 years

lo-14 years

15-19 J:ears

Males 12.62 10.00 7.83 7.77 8.24 11.43 9.38 8.59

7.56 5.77 4.59 4.84 4.51 5.74 4.48 4.10

7.68 6.20 5.02 5.10 4.80 5.68 4.87 4.53

Females 11.64 9.34 7.32 7.24 7.38 10.45 8.83 8.39

6.80 5.44 4.41 4.47 4.29 5.28 4.24 4.26

7.30 6.17 4.94 4.96 4.77 5.21 4.46 4.47

(1969, pp. 112-113).

mortality rate for adults did not increase during the 18.50s although the rate of decrease slowed down (Hofsten and Lundstrom, 1976, pp. 4753; Statistiska Centralbyran, 1969, pp. 112-113). This fact makes the sharp increase in the death rate for children, from causes other than cholera, even more remarkable. This tragic development, of course, has long been known to students of Swedish demographic and economic history. In our view, however, they have not yet produced a satisfactory explanation. Thus a recent work on trends in Swedish population history published by the national bureau of statistics (Statistiska Centrulbyr&z) does nothing more than repeat Gustav Sundbarg’s nonexplanation from 1909. After noting that the elimination of smallpox had been largely responsible for the drop in child mortality recorded for the decades after 1820, Sundbarg notes that the succeeding sharp rise in child mortality was caused by “new children’s diseases . . . which in a mysterious way seem to have replaced smallpox as a cause of death.” These “new” diseases were measles, scarlatina, whooping cough, and dysentery (Hofsten and Lundstrom, 1976, pp. 4753). These diseases, of course, were new only in the sense that they were now large-scale killers of children. With the possible exception of scarlatina, the outcomes of these diseases are known to be nutrition related (Bellagio Conference, 1983, p. 506). Thus the fact that they were

OVERPOPULATION

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11

now much more likely to have a fatal outcome is strong evidence of deteriorating nutrition for many children. On the other hand, since the outcome of smallpox is only “minimally” related to nutrition,’ the previous sharp drop in child mortality from that disease did not require any upwar trend in nutrition. Demographic data also makes another point of interest for the problem at hand. The period after 1810, including the 1840-1870 period, witnessed increases both in the share of children in the population and the share of children plus old people. From 32.0% of the population in 1840, the share of the O-14 age-group increased to 34.1% in 1870 (Statistiska Centralbyr$m, 1969, p. 68). Finally, it should be remembered that while approximately 65% of the population lived in the West, the percentage of children must have been even greater. This conclusion follows from the fact that the West was deJinad to include those areas with high fertility and population growth rates. Thus the West must have had a higher proportion of children than the East which was characterized by low fertility and low rates of population growth. The North may have been as child intensive as the West, but its small share of the total population makes that observation uninteresting. These conclusions are confirmed by the limited data available on the age distribution of the population by region (Emigrationsntredningen, 1913, Bilaga V, p0 52). J&BERG’S REAL WAGE SERIES The most important information on Swedish wage levels before 1870 is the series of real daily wages of agricultural workers calculated by Lennart J&-berg. J&berg’s work utilizes the price information on no less that 61 different products, plus the wage of day laborers and day laborers also providing a pair of horses, that is available on a county basis starting in 1732. While the data base is not complete, it is nevertheless remarkable. This price information is a byproduct of Sweden’s in-kind tax system. The organization of the armed forces was the most dramatic example of this system. The settled soldiers were supported, in lieu of money taxes, by the local landowning peasants. In addition to their croft, the soldiers were provided with a long list of goods and services. Numerous other government officials also received their pay in the form of land, goods, and services from the local population. Such a system naturally required ’ We do not mean to imply that there was no improvement in nutrition during the period between circa 1800 and 1840. Certainly there was a recovery from the disasters of the Napoleanic wars. Furthermore, heights during this period reached new record levels. We believe this to be compatible with a real wage level for day workers similar to that in the middle of the 18th century because of the rapid spread of the potato as a field crop and the unusually good harvests during the period. See, Emigrationsutredingen (1913), pp. 58 and 94.

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SANDBERGANDSTECKEL

a set of official prices for the goods and services involved. It is these prices that were used by J&berg.* As noted above, we have modified J&berg’s series. Our reworking of the series resulted from our interest in using it in an annual and regionally disaggregated form for regression analysis. This form of the series was not available, however, so we went back to the underlying price data and reconstructed the series. In so doing we made several changes compared with J&berg’s calculations. While we relied on the same prices and the same market basket weights, we adjusted for missing price observations by increasing the weights of similar products, not all products as J&-berg did. More importantly, we aggregate to the national and regional (from the county) level using population weights, rather than treating all counties as equally important. J&berg’s approach of giving equal weight to the figures from each county regardless of population especially tends to exaggerate the importance of the lightly populated Northern counties. In 1850 the Northern counties had an average population less than half as large as that of the average county nationwide (Statistiska Centralby&n, 1969, p. 50). In addition, we calculate our results on a regional as well as a national level, and annually, not just as 5, IO-, or even 20-year moving averages. In general terms our national series accords well with J&berg’s series. There are some important differences, however. Jorberg’s IO-year overlapping average shows a sharp decline starting in 1780, and continuing to 1805, followed by an equally sharp increase up to 1825. He then notes a slight decline up to 1850 followed by a “large increase” all the way up to the end of the series in 1914 (J&-berg, 1972 Vol. 2, p. 337). In our series, the turn of the 19th-century decline is less deep and does not begin until 1797. Similarly, Jorberg’s mild downtrend between 1820 and 1850 for us occurs between the middle 1820s and the late 1850s. Perhaps the most important difference, however, is that J&berg has a large increase between 1850 and 1862 which is only partly offset by a drop to 1870. We, on the other hand, have a hump between 1857 and 1866 which, however, is totally offset by the terrible 5-year period 1867-1871. Our interpretation of the 19th century is therefore quite different. We see first a recovery from the crisis of the Wars of the French Revolution back to the levels of the second half of the 18th century. This 18thcentury level is then maintained, with some fluctuations until after 1870. This is also the pattern we observe for the West and East demographic zones. The North, which we believe is given much too much weight in J&berg’s series, enjoyed a clearly higher real wage in the post-1810 period than it had in the 18th century. Breaking the 1820-1869 period into two parts, 1820-1839 and 1840-1869, our series indicates that real * For a detailed discussion of these prices, see J&-berg (1972), Vol. 1, Chap. II and III.

OVERPOPULATION

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TABLE 5 Real Wage Index for Day Labor (East 1803-1804 = 100) Period 1815-1819 1820-1824 1825-1829 1830-1834 183.5-1839 1840-1844 1845-1849 1850-1854 1855-1859 1860-1864 1865-1869 1870-1874 1857-1866 1867-1871 1820-1839 1840-1869

National average

West

East

North

Jorberg”

107.2 119.9 118.2 113.9 112.4 112.2 108.2 106.2

102.7 117.6

102.8 114.1

107.2

111.2 108.4

115.3 109.8

106.9 106.3

107.0

149.1 151.3 162.7 151.3 154.5 148.4 158.6 157.5 173.9 182.7 163.4 187.2 176.0 154.4 155.0 164.1

103.4 102.0 116.1 116.6

108.1 100.5 97.3

114.3 129.0

122.7 128.5 114.9 129.1 128.9 106.6

108.9 120.5 119.2 101.4

110.4 130.2 127.1 101.3

116.1 115.5

111.0 108.9

111.6 109.9

125.1 119.6 119.6 116.8 114.5 114.1 111.3 123.7 137.4 120.9 148.4

120.3 120.7

Note. No separate useful data are available for the city of Stockholm. Source. Calculated from J&berg (1972) and taken from J&berg (1972) Vol. 2, p. 355. u The national 5-year series in the last column is as close to annual data as is contained in Jorberg’s work. To facilitate comparison, we have deliberately set his index equal to our national 5-year series for 1815-1819. After that point, J&berg’s series is above ours. Jorberg also has 1840-1869 slightly higher than 1820-1839 while we have it the other way around. The discussion of J&berg’s findings in our text is largely based his presentation which, in turn, is based on a 5-year moving and a IO-year overlapping average. These results are presented in diagrammatic form only (J&berg, 1972, Vol. 2, p. 337).

wages were somewhat lower in the latter period in the West, the East, and the country as a whole. J&-berg, on the other hand, has a slight national improvement for 1840-1869 over 1820-1839 (see Table 5). NaturaIly, the daily wage rate need not be a particularly good measure of real annual income, even for a person who does nothing but day work. As J&berg notes, there is also the problem of rural unemployment (Jorberg, 1972, Vol. 2, p. 344). Unfortunately there is little information available on the number of days actually worked. Literary evidence, as well as common sense, however, indicates that the availability of job opportunities (especially harvest and capital-creating work and especially in areas devoid of large estates) varied directly with the state of the harvest. Poor harvests would certainly imply less opportunities for day work, as well as less output on the scraps of land worked for their own account by the agricultural proletariat. There is also at least some reason to befieve that the semiofficial day wage used to create the real wage index tends to exaggerate the actual average day wage rate paid during years of very poor harvests.g 9 Moberg (1962), p. 225. Moberg, one of Sweden’s most distinguished

novelists of the

14

SANDBERG

AND STECKEL

It is thus of considerable interest to study changes between time periods in the average state of the harvest. The best data available on harvests are the official government harvest index. This series is available for the entire period 1748-1912. Since it attempts to measure the level of the harvest relative to expectations, or capacity to produce, it cannot be used as a measure of trends in agricultural output. It is also doubtful that a comparison of the entry for 1748 with that for 1912 has much meaning of any kind. We do believe, however, that a comparison of the period 1820-1839 with the period 1840-1869 is worthwhile. During the first period of 20 years, 8 harvests were judged to be better than normal, while 6 were judged to be normal and 6 worse than normal. During the following 30-year period, however, there were still only 8 above-normal harvests while no less than 14 were judged to be subnormal (Emigrationsutredningen, 1913, p. 58). Thus poor harvests, at least relative to perceived capacity levels, were considerably more frequent after than before 1840. The impact of poor crops on employment opportunities almost certainly varied regionally. Generally speaking, the East was the region of large estates while the West was dominated by relatively small holdings (except in Sk&ire). While wages and incomes were not necessarily any higher in the East than in the West, it seems likely that workers and tenants on the large estates were somewhat better protected against the worst consequences of crop failures. The estates having much greater resources of liquid wealth, not to mention better access to capital markets, could continue capital-creating employment and grant extensions of rental payments to tenants in years when the harvest was poor (Jonsson, 1980, pp. 129-131). It must also be remembered that the continued disporportionate growth of the agricultural proletariat means that the percentage of the population totally, or largely, dependent on agricultural day work was growing throughout the period. Although we do not have exact figures on the class distribution of the population on a regional basis, this growth of the agricultural poor must have been greater in the West than in the East. The West, after all, is defined by its considerably higher rate of population growth during this period.”

20th century, was the youngest child in the large family of a soldier “settled” in Sm%land. Raskens, like several other of Moberg’s novels, describes the conditions of the Swedish agricultural poor during the second half of the 19th century. lo While the West was a source of outmigration, both within the country and abroad, the numbers involved, at least before the very end of the 186Os, were not large enough to make much difference. See Hofsten and Lundstrom (1976) p. 144.

OVERPOPULATION

AND

MALNUTRITION

IN

SWEDEN

1.5

DISCUSSION

This paper has presented two major Swedish phenomena. One of these is the sharp reversal in the upward trend in adult heights that occurred starting with cohorts born around 1840. When the national data are subdivided into regions, this reversal is seen to be overwhelmingly concentrated in the West demographic zone. In this zone, the decline in heights may even have begun with cohorts from the late 1830s. The real nosedive, however, is clearly related to the cohorts starting around 1840. Some post-1840 decline can also be noted for the other areas, but the results must be said to be ambiguous. The second phenomenon is the sharp increase in child, but not adult, mortality that occurred starting in the late 1840s. This increase in child mortality, unlike the preceding decrease, was associated with diseases whose outcome is closely related to nutritional levels. Since the West contained about 65% of the total population, and an even larger percentage of all children, these sad events too were almost certainly concentrated in the West. Both phenomena imply, or at least are compatible with, deteriorating levels of nutrition for the majority of all Swedish children, once again, especially in the West zone. How can these phenomena be reconciled with economic developments as we understand them? The evidence on real agricultural day wages is that there was no long-run trend during the period in question, either nationally or in the West and East zones. Thus the real agricultural wage index alone cannot explain the sharp drop in heights in the West. This negative result, incidentally, accords well with Tommy Bengtsson and Rolf Ohlsson’s finding that fluctuations in the wage index cannot be statistically related to mortality in the 1-19 age-group during the ISOO1859 period (Bengtsson and Ohlsson, 1985, p+ 319). Other forces, however, also were at work. Population growth, together with a very inelastic supply of land, was increasing the share of the landless and the almost landless in the population. This must have been especially the case in the West where population growth was above the national average. Thus a growing share of all households were becoming dependent on these very low wages. The increased frequency after 1840 of harvests judged to be subnormal also raises the likelihood that, on average, these groups were receiving lower annual incomes than similarly situated groups ha received in earlier decades. We also know that children formed a larger percentage of the population in the West than in the country as a whole. This must almost certainly translate into more children per household with children since the percentage of adults who were married was actually lower in the West than in the East. Finally, the number of children was increasing, as a percentage of the entire population.

16

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AND STECKEL

Thus it seems clear that, especially in the West, a growing percentage of children were living in households near the bottom of the income distribution and that the number of children per such household was probably increasing. Furthermore, on an annual basis, it seems at least plausible that the incomes of these families was on average less after 1840 than before. The statistical significance and practical importance of the distribution of income for heights and health has been established for a diverse set of data for the 20th century (Steckel, 1983). The demographic data make it clear that the brunt of the misfortune of these families, at least in terms of long-run consequences, was borne by the children. This result should not be surprising. First of all, it is certainly true that families with children, particularly with a number of children too young to work effectively, on average will “enjoy” a lower per member standard of living than will childless families. They will have little in the way of nonfood expenditures on which to cut down when times are hard. Second, since the working adults were the major source of whatever income was coming into the household, and since that income was more likely to fall than was the work effort that had to be expended to earn it, they could scarcely be deprived of food to the point where their ability to work was seriously impaired. For them, food was as much a productive input (fuel) as it was consumption. The most likely losers in the division of increasingly scarce food, therefore, were children who had been weaned (nursing mothers were also workers) but were not old enough to do meaningful work. Feeding them at the expense of those capable of work likely would bring later disaster for all.” Third, in hard times, children who were capable of work may have put forward more effort relative to their shrinking diet, further reducing net nutrition. This, however, is not the end of the story. A given percentage reduction in nutritional intake is likely to cause greater health damage in children than in adults for three distinct reasons: (1) Children are likely to have less immunity from disease than adults. (2) Children are likely to have less nutritional reserves than adults. (3) Energy devoted to the growth process in children will absorb some of their nutrition ~upply.‘~ None of this, it should be stressed, is incompatible with the more optimistic data discussed in the introduction. Thus it is perfectly possible that per worker (or per capita) national income and per worker (or per capita) agricultural output was increasing somewhat both at the national level and even in the West. Martinius’ figures would yield an increase in per worker agricultural production between 1835 and 1870 of between 2.5 and 30%. As noted above, however, his figures may well be exaggerated ‘I For a literary presentation of this heart-rending dilemma, see Moberg (1962), p. 226. ‘* For discussions of the disproportionate effect of famines on children see, Hugo (1984), Jelliffe and Jelliffe (1971), and Bongaarts and Cain (1982).

OVERPOPULATION

AND MALNUTRITION

IN SWEDEN

I?

by a failure to take account of increased levels of purchased inputs. In addition it is not clear whether these results take account of the apparent increase in the frequency of poor crops-do they refer to actual production levels or to some notion of normal agricultural production? There is also a question of the regional distribution of these possible gains in productivity. On the other hand, it is difhcult not to believe that per worker output increased in the nonagricultural sectors of the economy, even if the Swedish economy was still overwhelmingly agricultural in 1870.‘3 The substantial increase in the real value of agricultural land, and perhaps an increase in the rate of return to agricultural capital,*4 however, implies that the increased agricultural productivity was ending, up in the hands of the relatively well to do, landed peasantry. In percentage terms this was, of course, a shrinking class of people. In short, population growth and insufficient economic development were combining to produce an increasingly unequal distribution of a (barely) growing national income.i5 This shift in the distribution of income and wealth, in turn, spelled suffering, impaired growth, and even an early death for large numbers of children of the agricultural poor, especially in the West.“j I3 Agriculture supported 72.4% of the population as late as 1870 (Statistiska Centralby&, p. 82). The urban share of the population was 9.8% in 1820, 10.1% in 1860, and still only 12.9% (3.3% in Stockholm) in 1870 (Statistiska Centralbyran 1969, pp. 46 and 40). The cities, or at least Stockholm, continued to have disproportionately high death rates especially for infants, throughout the period. The numbers are such, however, that a shift to urban environments between circa 1848 and the late 1860s can only explain a very small part of the increase in child mortality on the national level. I4 Our calculations, based on J&berg’s data, indicate that the real daily payment to a man with two horses increased faster than the real wage of the man by himself. ” See also, Fridlizius (1984), p. 85. l6 In a recent paper, Gunnar Fridlizius has argued, by elimination, that the secular decline in Swedish mortality rates up to at least 1820, and their reversal at midcentury, must overwhelmingly be the result of changes in the “epidemic climate” (Fridlizius, 1984). While Fridlizius, like many other scholars, agrees that short-run fluctuations in incomes and nutrition affected short-run mortality (see Fridlizius, 1984; Bengtsson and Ohlsson, 1984; Fridlizius and Ohlsson, 1984; Bentsson, 1984), he.asserts that there was no “notable improvement of nutritional conditions” before the 1850s (Fridlizius, 1984, p. 82). While we would certainly agree that the permanent transformation’of Swedish net nutritional status did not begin until after 1850 (after 1869 in fact), we do not agree that the 18001869 period can be treated as a single unit. Rather we find substantial improvement up to circa 1840 followed by deterioration in the 1840-1869 period. While some of these changes in net nutrition might have been due to changes in disease regimens, or to levels of work activity, we do believe that there were substantial variations in food intake. Since we tind that net nutrition levels, as measured by heights, during the mid-19th century crisis returned to pre-1800 levels while mortality rates did not, our major disagreement with the following conclusion by Fridlizius is to substitute “net nutrition” for “epidemic dlimate”: “When in the mid-nineteenth century the epidemic climate deteriorated after an interregnuum of about 70 years, the strength and duration of this new epidemic wave were mitigated by improved hygiene, superior medical care and more effective measures on the part of the

18

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As should be apparent from the tone of the last two paragraphs, we do not pretend to have answered all the questions we have raised. More work is certainly required. It is our hope that our efforts will stimulate such work by students of Swedish economic history. There are still many data on this period-both demographic and economic, especially on a geographically disaggregated basis-that have not been fully exploited. REFERENCES Bongaarts, J., and Cain, M. (1982) “Demographic Responses to Famine.” In K. M. Cahill (Ed.), Famine. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Pp. 44-59. Bellagio Conference (1983), “The Relationship of Nutrition, Disease, and Social Conditions.” Journal

of Interdisciplinary

History

13, 503-506.

Bengtsson, T. (1984), “Harvest Fluctuations and Demographic Response: Southern Sweden, 1751-1858. In T. Bengtsson, G. Fridlizius, and R. Ohlsson (Eds.), Pre-Zndustrial Population Change. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Pp. 329-356. Bengtsson, T., and Ohlsson, R. (1984), “Population and Economic Fluctuations in Sweden 1749-1914.” In T. Bengtsson, G. Fridlizius, and R. Ohlsson (Eds.), Pre-Industrial Population Change. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Pp. 277-298. Bengtsson, T., and Ohlsson, R. (1985), “Age-Specific Mortality and Short-Term Changes in the Standard of Living: Sweden, 1751-1859.” European Journal ofPopulation 1, 309-326. Carlsson, S. (1961), Svensk Historia II. Stockholm: Bonniers. Emigrationsutredningen (1913), Betiinkande. Stockholm. Fogel, R., et a/. (1983) “Secular Changes in American and British Stature and Nutrition.” Journal

of Interdisciplinary

History

13, 445-481.

Fridlizius, G. (1984), “The Mortality Decline in the First Phase of the Demographic Transition: Swedish Experiences.” In T. Bengtsson, G. Fridlizius, and R. Ohlsson (Eds.), PreIndustrial Population Change. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Pp. 71-114. Fridlizius, G., and Ohlsson, R., (1984), “Mortality Patterns in Sweden 1751-1802: A Regional Analysis.” In T. Bengtsson, G. Fridlizius, and R. Ohlsson (Ed%), PreIndustrial Population Change. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Pp. 299-328. Fritz, M. (1971), “Review of Martinius.” Historisk Tidskrif 34, 603-613. Heckscher, E. (1954), An Economic History of Sweden. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press. Hofsten, E., and Lundstrom, H. (1976), “Swedish Population History: Main Trends from 1750 to 1970.” Urval 8, 3-186. Hugo, G. (1984), “The Demographic Impact of Famine: A Review.” In B. Currey and G. Hugo (Eds.), Famine as a Geographical Phenomena. Boston: DeReifel. Pp. 7-31. Jelliie, D. E., and Jelliffe, E. F. (971), “The Effect of Famine and Starvation on the Functioning of the Family and of Society.” In G. Blix, Y. Hofvander, and B. Wahlquist (Eds.), Famine: A Symposium on Famine Relief Operations in Times of Disaster. Uppsala. Jonsson, U. (1980), Jordmagnater, landbonder och torpare i sydiistra Sddermanland, ISOO1880. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Jorberg, L. (1972), A History of Prices in Sweden. Lund: Gleerup. Vols. 1 and 2. Martinius, S. (1971), “Jordbruk och ekonomisk tillvaxt i Sverige, 1830-1870.” Historisk Tidskrif

34, 603-604.

Moberg, V. (1962), Raskens.

Stockholm: Bonniers.

authorities in the form of stricter quarantine regulations etc. and, even more important, considerable sanitary improvements” (Fridlizius, 1984, p. 109).

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Sandberg, L. G., and Steckel, R. H. (1980), “Soldier, Soldier, What Made You Grow So Tall?” Economy and History 23, 91-105. Sandberg, L. G., and Steckel, R. H (1987), “Heights and Economic History: The Swedish Case.” Annals of Human Biology, 14, 101-110. Soderberg, J., “Interrelationships Between Short-term Economic and Demographic Fluctuations in a Period of Crisis: South Eastern Sweden, 1866-1872.” In T. Bengtsson, G. Fridlizius, and R. Ohlsson (Eds.), Pre-Industrial Population Change. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Pp. 255-276. Statistiska Centralbyran (1969), Historisk statistik flir Sverige, Dei. 1. Befolkning. Stockholm. Steckel, R. H. (1979), “Slave Height Profiles from Coastwise Manifests.” Explorations in Economic History 16, 363-380. Steckel, R. H. (1983), “Height and Per Capita Income.” Historical Methods 15, l-7. Steckel, R. H. (1986), “A Peculiar Population: The Nutrition, Health, and Mortality of American Slaves from Childhood to Maturity.” Journal of Economic History 46, 721741. Steckel, R. H. (1987), “Growth Depression and Recovery: The Remarkable Case of American Slaves.” Annals of Human Biology, 14, 111-152. Trussell, J., and Steckel, R. H. (1978), “The Age of Slaves at Menarche and Their First Birth.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 8, 477-505. Wachter, K. (1981) “Graphical Estimation of Military Heights.” Historical Methods 14, 31-42. Wachter, K., and TrusselI, J. (1982), “Estimating Historical Heights.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 77, 279-293.