ANTHROPOMETRIC TRENDS IN SOUTHERN CHINA, 1830–1864

Anthropometric indicators can shed light on the ‘Great Divergence’ debate on the timing of the welfare development in China and Europe. We mobilise two new datasets of some 13,000 Southern Chinese contract migrants who were sent to Suriname and Indonesia, and thus supplement the limited existing evidence on early to mid‐nineteenth century China. The Southern Chinese were about as tall as Southern Europeans during the early and mid‐nineteenth century, but notably shorter than Northwestern Europeans. Height development was stagnant or slightly downward over the period studied, which fits into the pattern of real wage developments at that time.