Growing Incomes, Growing People in Nineteenth-Century Tasmania

• Published in: Australian economic history review Vol. 55; no. 2; pp. 187 - 211
• Main Authors: Inwood, Kris, Maxwell-Stewart, Hamish, Oxley, Deborah, Stankovich, Jim
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Brisbane Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.07.2015
• Subjects: 19th century; Australia; Bias; Economic conditions; Economic history; Income; J33; N15; N35; nutrition; Population growth; prisoners; Public health; standard of living; stature; Studies; Tasmania; Urbanization; Wages & salaries; Australia; Tasmania Australia
• ISSN: 0004-8992; 1467-8446; 2832-157X
• DOI: 10.1111/aehr.12071

The earliest measures of well‐being for Europeans born in the Pacific region are heights and wages in Tasmania. Evidence of rising stature in middle decades of the nineteenth century survives multiple checks for measurement, compositional, and selection bias. The challenge to health and stature seen in other settler societies (the ‘antebellum paradox’) is not visible here. We sketch an interpretation for the simultaneous rise of Tasmanian stature and per capita gross domestic product based on relatively slow population growth and urbanisation, a decline in food cost per family member available from a worker's wage, and early recognition of the importance of public health.