Stunting and selection effects of famine
Subtitle: a case study of the great Chinese famine
By: by Tue Gorgens, Xin Meng, Rhema Vaithianathan.
Contributors: Meng, Xin.
Series: Discussion paper -- no. 2543; Discussion paper (Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit : Online) -- no. 2543
Publisher: IZA
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Bonn, Germany
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Subjects: Famines -- China -- History -- 20th century.
Description: "The Great Chinese Famine of 1959-1961 is puzzling, since despite the high death rates, there is no discernable diminution in height amongst the majority of cohorts who were exposed to the famine in crucial growth years. An explanation is that shorter children experienced greater mortality and that this selection offset stunting. We disentangle stunting and selection effects of the Chinese famine, using the height of the children of the famine cohort. We find significant stunting of about 2cm for rural females and slightly less for rural males who experienced the famine in the first five years of life. Our results suggest that mortality bias implies that raw height is not always a good measure of economic conditions during childhood"--Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 3/16/2007.

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