Assessing the effects of autarchic policies on the biological well-being: Analysis of deviations in cohort male height in the Valencian Community (Spain) during Francoist regime

Abstract

This article aims to assess the impact of autarchic policies on the biological dimensions of human well-being during Francoist regime in Spain. This is done by examining the nutritional status of the population through the study of male adult heights. Our case study is the Valencian Community with the focus on the period 1940–59 which witnessed the implementation of such policies. The heights of 21-year old draftees born between 1900 and 1954 from nine municipalities (N = 87,510) were analyzed in the light of inter-cohort deviations from a secular trend established for cohorts that were not exposed to autarchy-related hardships. Height was regressed on infant mortality as a way to control for infection and therefore approach the net effect of nutrition on height outcomes. Contrarily to what was displayed by cohort height trends in themselves, the results reveal a significant worsening of the nutritional status of the male population at the time. Deviations from the expected height trend across municipalities ranged between −0.5 and −3.4 mm per year. The effects of malnutrition are found to be larger among cohorts born in the period 1920–34 in coherence with a longer exposure to autarchy hardships during adolescence. Pre-autarchy nutrition levels observed among the cohorts of 1900–14 were not regained until the cohorts 1945–49. The results also show that malnutrition had an unequal impact with the large industrial towns of our sample experiencing the poorest height outcomes. Overall, these results invite to revise conclusions obtained from the sole evidence of height trends and they question the efficiency of intervention policies implemented in Spain during the 1940s.