In 2009, Horrell, Meredith and Oxley used trends in body mass to argue that poor London women in the later 19th century suffered declining access to household resources over their lifetimes.  The authors evaluated competing models of household behaviour, rejected the unitary model of equal...

In 2009, Horrell, Meredith and Oxley used trends in body mass to argue that poor London women in the later 19th century suffered declining access to household resources over their lifetimes. The authors evaluated competing models of household behaviour, rejected the unitary model of equal...

This article examines three propositions put by Leunig and Voth: that smallpox reduced stature irrespective of location, that stunting was most apparent among adolescents, and that these relationships were obscured in my earlier work by small sample size. It tests these claims by re-examining...

Recent works have investigated whether smallpox stunted growth. The answer is important for disentangling the factors driving changing heights. This article outlines the disease and its history in Britain. It then introduces a new source for the study of smallpox: prisoner records. These offer...

Gender bias against girls in nineteenth-century England has received much interest but establishing its existence has proved difficult.  We utilise data on heights of 16,402 children working in northern textile factories in 1837 to examine whether gender bias was evident.  Current...

As in many other developed countries, Ireland in recent decades has experienced a postponement of maternity. In this paper we consider the main trends in this phenomenon, considering changes in first and later births separately. We adapt the theoretical model due to Walker (1995) to incorporate...

As in many other developed countries, Ireland in recent decades has experienced a postponement of maternity. In this paper we consider the main trends in this phenomenon, considering changes in first and later births separately. We adapt the theoretical model due to Walker (1995) to incorporate...