The Unequal Nature of Shifting Growth: The Growth Pattern of British Children, 1850–1975

The growth pattern of British children has changed substantially over the past 120 years (Cameron, 1979). Children in the late nineteenth century grew at a slower velocity, experienced a delayed pubertal growth spurt, and grew for longer than children today. However, despite good knowledge about the general shifts in the growth pattern, there is little evidence available to date that can help pinpoint when these changes occurred and what might have caused them. Based on three new datasets covering nearly 30,000 children, this paper reconstructs precise changes in the growth pattern between the 1850s and the 1970s, and explores socioeconomic gradients in physical growth. Although this shift of growth pattern has been described in general terms using cross-sectional growth profiles, this paper provides the first dynamic study using individual-level data. Two datasets are drawn from training ship records containing boys’ longitudinal growth between the ages of 10 and 16 spanning the 1850s to 1970s. These long-run measures are supplemented with four cross-sectional datasets covering a wide range of ages and both sexes as cross checks for the results’ validity (the new North Surrey School District dataset, 1865-92, the West London School District dataset, 1908-15, the Boyd Orr Cohort, 1937-9 and the 1958 National Childhood Development Study). After describing the changing growth pattern controlling for individual characteristics, we will further explore these characteristics. We show that parental social status, the disease environment, and family size are important variables in explaining the changing growth pattern.