Weight as a Measure for the Net Nutritional Transition From Bound to Free Labor: A Difference-in-Decompositions Approach

A population’s weight conditioned on height reflects its current net nutrition and demonstrates health variation during economic development. This study builds on the use of weight as a measure for current net nutrition and uses a difference-in-decompositions technique as it relates to institutional change to illustrate how Black and White current net nutrition varied with the transition to free-labor. Adult Black age-related weight gain was greater with the transition to free-labor yet was not as large as the adult White age-related weight gain. Agricultural worker’s current net nutrition was better than workers in other occupations, but was worse-off with the transition to free labor. Birth place within the United States had the greatest effect with across and within-group weight changes and the transition to free-labor. Within-group weight variation was greater than across-group variation.