Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/215039 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 8037
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
When other measures for economic welfare are scarce or unreliable, the body mass index (BMI) is a biological measure that reflects current net nutrition. This study uses a difference-in-decompositions framework to analyze how women's BMIs varied with the advent of early 20th century social feminism. Late 19th and early 20th century US economic development improved the relative status of women relative to both men before and after the transition to social feminism. Twentieth century women's BMIs were higher than 19th century women relative to men with the rise of social feminism. The primary source of female-male across-group variation was height and nativity, indicating there was net nutritional progress for women relative to men associated with changing cumulative net nutrition. The primary source of female-male within-group variation was nativity and socioeconomic status, indicating there was net nutritional progress relative to women born before the transition for women born after the rise of social feminism association with socioeconomic status.
Subjects: 
BMI variation
economic transitions Oaxaca decompositions
JEL: 
C10
C40
D10
I10
N30
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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