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Transitions that Matter? Czechoslovakia’s Break up and Human Stature
Changes in a population’s average stature are virtuous pointers of wellbeing which are sensitive to improvements in psychosocial environments during childhood. A major structural change that could have altered an environment during childhood is the transition from communist to a liberal democracy, a...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6950449/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31835829 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16245050 |
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author | Costa-Font, Joan Kossarova, Lucia |
author_facet | Costa-Font, Joan Kossarova, Lucia |
author_sort | Costa-Font, Joan |
collection | PubMed |
description | Changes in a population’s average stature are virtuous pointers of wellbeing which are sensitive to improvements in psychosocial environments during childhood. A major structural change that could have altered an environment during childhood is the transition from communist to a liberal democracy, and, more specifically, the meltdown of the Soviet bloc provides for a quasi-natural experiment. This paper examines the trends in heights in the Czech Republic and Slovakia before and after the transition and the subsequent break-up of the Czechoslovakian federation. We find that one additional year of exposure to a liberal democracy while growing up is associated with an increasing population stature of 0.28 cm among Slovaks and 0.15 cm among Czechs. We only find changes in stature among men who are more sensitive to environmental stress, especially at the lower end of the current socio-economic status. Results are robust to alternative datasets and measures of democracy. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6950449 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-69504492020-01-16 Transitions that Matter? Czechoslovakia’s Break up and Human Stature Costa-Font, Joan Kossarova, Lucia Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Changes in a population’s average stature are virtuous pointers of wellbeing which are sensitive to improvements in psychosocial environments during childhood. A major structural change that could have altered an environment during childhood is the transition from communist to a liberal democracy, and, more specifically, the meltdown of the Soviet bloc provides for a quasi-natural experiment. This paper examines the trends in heights in the Czech Republic and Slovakia before and after the transition and the subsequent break-up of the Czechoslovakian federation. We find that one additional year of exposure to a liberal democracy while growing up is associated with an increasing population stature of 0.28 cm among Slovaks and 0.15 cm among Czechs. We only find changes in stature among men who are more sensitive to environmental stress, especially at the lower end of the current socio-economic status. Results are robust to alternative datasets and measures of democracy. MDPI 2019-12-11 2019-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6950449/ /pubmed/31835829 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16245050 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Costa-Font, Joan Kossarova, Lucia Transitions that Matter? Czechoslovakia’s Break up and Human Stature |
title | Transitions that Matter? Czechoslovakia’s Break up and Human Stature |
title_full | Transitions that Matter? Czechoslovakia’s Break up and Human Stature |
title_fullStr | Transitions that Matter? Czechoslovakia’s Break up and Human Stature |
title_full_unstemmed | Transitions that Matter? Czechoslovakia’s Break up and Human Stature |
title_short | Transitions that Matter? Czechoslovakia’s Break up and Human Stature |
title_sort | transitions that matter? czechoslovakia’s break up and human stature |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6950449/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31835829 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16245050 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT costafontjoan transitionsthatmatterczechoslovakiasbreakupandhumanstature AT kossarovalucia transitionsthatmatterczechoslovakiasbreakupandhumanstature |