Stature, Poverty, and Inequality in 19th- and 20th-Century Mexico

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moramay López-Alonso
Keyword(s):  
Living Standards ◽  
Human Welfare ◽  
Structural Inequality ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
Porfirio Diaz ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
Economic Downturns ◽  
History Of ◽  
19Th And 20Th Century

Anthropometric studies have shown that the evolution of human stature can be helpful to examine human welfare. Adult stature is an indicator of health status and living standards for periods in which there has not been a systematic collection of data of other indicators, such as the price of goods and wages, as is the case in Mexico prior to 1950. Mexican anthropometric history studies have revealed that stature is a good measure to examine the evolution of living standards in the long run and that it has been effective for assessing poverty and inequality. These studies have shown that, for the period 1850–1950, the evolution of living standards was heterogeneous. There were different trajectories depending on the socioeconomic status. People from working-class backgrounds experienced a deterioration and/or stagnation, while people from upper-class backgrounds experienced a sustained increase in average stature. These trends challenged the official history of the post-revolutionary period, which argued that the living standards of the Mexican population deteriorated during the Porfirio Díaz administration (1876–1911) and improved afterwards with the promulgation of social legislation in the post-revolutionary era (post-1910). Additional studies show that, during the post-1950 period, there was a generalized improvement in stature, but it was limited by the challenges of economic downturns and persistent structural inequality.

scholarly journals The History of Technological Anxiety and the Future of Economic Growth: Is This Time Different?

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 31-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Mokyr ◽  
Chris Vickers ◽  
Nicolas L. Ziebarth
Keyword(s):  
Technological Progress ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Human Welfare ◽  
Economic Progress ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Cultural Anxiety ◽  
Short Run ◽  
History Of ◽  
Developed World

Technology is widely considered the main source of economic progress, but it has also generated cultural anxiety throughout history. The developed world is now suffering from another bout of such angst. Anxieties over technology can take on several forms, and we focus on three of the most prominent concerns. First, there is the concern that technological progress will cause widespread substitution of machines for labor, which in turn could lead to technological unemployment and a further increase in inequality in the short run, even if the long-run effects are beneficial. Second, there has been anxiety over the moral implications of technological process for human welfare, broadly defined. While, during the Industrial Revolution, the worry was about the dehumanizing effects of work, in modern times, perhaps the greater fear is a world where the elimination of work itself is the source of dehumanization. A third concern cuts in the opposite direction, suggesting that the epoch of major technological progress is behind us. Understanding the history of technological anxiety provides perspective on whether this time is truly different. We consider the role of these three anxieties among economists, primarily focusing on the historical period from the late 18th to the early 20th century, and then compare the historical and current manifestations of these three concerns.

The Idea of a Modern Orthodoxy

1911 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-488
Author(s):  
Douglas C. Macintosh
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
Human Welfare ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Modern Mind ◽  
History Of ◽  
Special Case

Systematic theology is, and of right ought to be, primarily practical. In the first place, true religion is both one of the ends of an ideal human life and, in the long run, an indispensable means to the morality which is most essential to human welfare, inner and outer. In the second place, theology is necessary as an instrument for the proper control of the development and expression of religion—a special case of the function of ideas in the control of life. It follows, therefore, that a sound theology is a human necessity. The purpose of the theologian, whatever else it may or must include, must be to find those religious truths which are essential to the vitality and efficiency of the best type of human religion.That this has really been the aim of theologians in the great formative periods of the history of Christian doctrine may readily be shown. The prevailing impression with regard to orthodoxy and excluded heresies is that the distinction between them is arbitrary and external. This is indeed to the modern mind true in large measure of the distinction between the old orthodoxy and heresy; but in their own day this distinction was neither arbitrary nor external. Then it was organically related to the most pressing of problems; it was supremely vital, for the issues involved were nothing short of spiritual life and death.

scholarly journals The Historical Determinations of Creating Health Records – A New Approach In Terms Of The Ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacek Lorkowski ◽  
Agnieszka Jugowicz
Keyword(s):  
Medical Records ◽  
Medical Procedures ◽  
Health Records ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
History Of ◽  
19Th And 20Th Century ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Formal Status

The history of health records (later also called medical records), including ones regarding individual patients, is thousands of years old. It finds it roots in the first ancient civilisations. Up until the 19th century the records’ purpose was mainly an educational one. In the 19th and 20th century they started becoming significant in other roles as well, including those not strictly limited to medicine. In particular, to account for medical procedures, insurance proceeds or legal action. Currently we are living in a revolutionary era when it comes to health records, in which their character has changed from a “paper-based” to an electronic one. This paper presents the development of health records from the ancient to modern times, mainly in Europe and North America. Other cultures and civilisations, including China and India, are not discussed. An analysis of available sources was conducted, inter alia digital versions of manuscripts up to hundreds of years old. The analysis was based on PubMed and Google Scholar (several key words, all the available sources). Sources published in non-international languages (e.g. Dutch) were also investigated. Overall, approximately 600 articles were analysed, 158 of which were used and cited in this paper. The conclusions drawn from the analysis are as follows: (1) Health records, priorly used mostly for educational purposes, for about 100 years now have acquired a fully formal status. (2) We are currently facing the most revolutionary changes regarding the transformation of paper-based records into electronic ones. (3) The consequences of this process include systematic applications of solutions within the area of e-health, which allow us to make medical services more flexible, improve the health of individual patients and entire populations and potentially limit expenditure. (4) In the light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, introducing electronic health records could be beneficial in terms of limiting the potential sources of contamination (physical copies of health records), saving time and resources, and improving the network of communication between medical centres.

scholarly journals What's Happened to Poverty and Inequality in Indonesia over Half a Century?

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-97
Author(s):  
Hal Hill
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Social Indicators ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Human Welfare ◽  
The Past ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract Indonesia has achieved moderately fast economic growth for most of the past 50 years. Has this growth translated into rising living standards? This is the question that is addressed in this paper. The conclusion is a qualified yes. The caveat is attached for two reasons: (i) philosophically, the definition of living standards remains a subject of considerable conjecture, and (ii) not all social indicators point in the same direction. I focus primarily on trends in measurable indicators of human welfare, particularly poverty and inequality. Combined with major improvements in the coverage and quality of the country's statistics, and a now extensive literature, it is possible to document, and in some cases explain, trends in living standards in some detail. I also investigate whether (and how) the sudden swing during 1999–2001 from an authoritarian and centralized regime to a democratic and decentralized era impacted significantly on these trends.

The Wealth and Poverty of African States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten Jerven
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Living Standards ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Long Run ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Over Time ◽  
New Framework

A wealth of new data have been unearthed in recent years on African economic growth, wages, living standards, and taxes. In The Wealth and Poverty of African States, Morten Jerven shows how these findings transform our understanding of African economic development. He focuses on the central themes and questions that these state records can answer, tracing how African states evolved over time and the historical footprint they have left behind. By connecting the history of the colonial and postcolonial periods, he reveals an aggregate pattern of long-run growth from the late nineteenth century into the 1970s, giving way to widespread failure and decline in the 1980s, and then followed by two decades of expansion since the late 1990s. The result is a new framework for understanding the causes of poverty and wealth and the trajectories of economic growth and state development in Africa across the twentieth century.

The Contemporary Serbian Historiography on Women in the Independent Serbian State (1878–1918): An Overview

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 62-75
Author(s):  
Yulia V. Lobacheva
Keyword(s):  
Gender Studies ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Women's Issues ◽  
Biographical Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modernization Process ◽  
19Th And 20Th Century ◽  
Current Stage

This article aims to consider how Serbian scholars/historians approach to the study of Serbian women in the history of the independent Serbian state and the Serbian society in 1878–1918 at the current stage of the research (from the beginning of 1990th until 2017). This paper will give an overview of some of the main areas of historical studies considering Serbian women’s “being and life”. For example the historiography on history of “women’s question” including women’s movement and/or feminism will be considered as well as biographical research, the study of women’s position through the lens of the modernization process in Serbia in the 19th and 20th Century, Serbian women’s issues in gender studies and through the history of everyday and private life and family, the analysis of the perception of Serbian woman by outside observers including the study of the image of Serbian woman created/constructed by “others”.

State-Sponsored Inequality

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuang Chen
Keyword(s):  
Qing Dynasty ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
The State ◽  
Structural Inequality ◽  
Political Hierarchy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Agrarian Societies ◽  
Stratification System ◽  
The Many

The book explores the social economic processes of inequality produced by differential state entitlements. Drawing on uniquely rich source materials from central and local archives, the book provides an unprecedented, comprehensive view of the creation of a socio-economic and political hierarchy under the Eight Banners in the Qing dynasty in what is now Shuangcheng County, Heilongjiang province. Shuangcheng was settled by bannermen from urban Beijing and elsewhere in rural Manchuria in the nineteenth century. The state classified the immigrants into distinct categories, each associated with differentiated land entitlements. By reconstructing the history of settlement and land distribution in this county, the book shows that patterns of wealth stratification and the underlying social hierarchy were not merely imposed by the state from the top-down but created and reinforced by local people through practices on the ground. In the course of pursuing their own interests, settlers internalized the distinctions created by the state through its system of unequal land entitlements. The tensions built into the unequal land entitlements therefore shaped the identities of immigrant groups, and this social hierarchy persisted after the fall of the Qing in 1911. The book offers an in-depth understanding of the key factors that contributed to social stratification in agrarian societies in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China. Moreover, it also sheds light on the many parallels between the stratification system in Qing-dynasty Shuangcheng and the structural inequality in contemporary China.

The Unfinished Sexual Revolution

1971 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 473-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Revolution ◽  
Editorial Note ◽  
Memorial Lecture ◽  
Human Welfare ◽  
The World ◽  
Control Clinic ◽  
History Of ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The University

Editorial note. March 17th, 1971 was the fiftieth anniversary of the opening by Marie Stopes of her birth control clinic in Holloway, London, the first of its kind in the UK and possibly in the world. In recognition of this notable event, the Board of the Marie Stopes Memorial Foundation, in conjunction with the University of York, has established a Marie Stopes Memorial Lecture to be given annually for a term of years. The first of the series was delivered on 12th March in the Department of Sociology, University of York, by Mr Laurie Taylor of that department. In introducing the speaker, Dr G. C. L. Bertram, the Chairman, emphasized the great contribution made by Marie Stopes to human welfare and gave a brief history of the clinic, which was soon moved to Whitfield Street. On Marie Stopes' death in 1958 the Memorial Foundation was set up to manage the clinic, still in Whitfield Street, and as a working monument to a great women.Mr Taylor's script is printed below as delivered and it will be seen that the lecture was a notable one. Not only that, but it was delivered with the verve of a Shakespearean actor and the members of the large and appreciative audience will not readily forget the occasion.

Chiari Malformation Presenting in Adults: A Surgical Experience in 127 Cases

Neurosurgery ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 377-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Joseph Levy ◽  
Laura Mason ◽  
Joseph F. Hahn
Keyword(s):  
Chiari Malformation ◽  
Complex Disease ◽  
Pathological Condition ◽  
Disease Process ◽  
Central Canal ◽  
Surgical Anatomy ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Long Term Follow Up ◽  
History Of

Abstract We reviewed 127 patients who were operated upon for adult presentation Chiari malformation and made six conclusions: (a) The clinical examination remains crucial in the diagnosis. (b) The surgical anatomy is highly varied. (c) Syrinxes can be missed on preoperative contrast studies. (d By a conservative grading system, we determined that 46%; of the patients improved during long term follow-up. One-quarter deteriorated over the long run in spite of any treatment. (e) The overall results did not differ whether the treatment was plugging of the central canal plus decompression or decompression alone. (f) In patients with progression, plugging of the central canal obtained superior results. A review of the literature shows that the natural history of this complex disease process has not been established. This history is needed to identify the course of what may be several important factors that lead to the pathological condition in this disease.

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