Mexico’s Real Wages in the Age of the Great Divergence, 1730-1930

This study builds the first internationally comparable index of real wages for Mexico City bridging the eighteenth and the early twentieth century. Real wages started out in relatively high international levels in the mid eighteenth century, but declined from the late 1770s on, with some partial and temporal rebounds after the 1810s. After the 1860s real wages recovered and eventually reached eighteenth-century levels in the early twentieth century. Real wages of Mexico City’s workers slid behind those of high-wage economies to converge with the lower fringes of middle-wage economies. The age of the global great divergence was Mexico’s own age of stagnation and decline relative to the world economy

Agricultural Crisis and Biological Well-Being in Mexico, 1730-1835

The article examines how adverse climatic conditions and high food prices influenced the opportunities of peasants in pre-industrial Mexico between 1730 and 1835. Particular attention is paid to data of soldier heights, global climate events, warm-season tree growth, and real food prices to determine how these factors may have affected urban and rural populations. Declines were seen in the general standard of living and average height, while the cost of food increased. It is argued that distribution and acquisition of food has an equal influence on biological well-being as the availability of food at any specific given time

Mapping the Boston Poor: Inmates of the Boston Almshouse, 1795–1801

This article examines postrevolutionary Boston through evidence about its poorest inhabitants, those admitted to the town’s almshouse from 1795 to 1801. Charts and maps constructed from Boston Almshouse records and geographical data about Boston for these years reveal the characteristics of the Almshouse inmates, as well as their residential location before entering the facility and their mobility after entering it a ªrst time. This study is part of a broader project that applies Geographical Information Systems (gis) to analyze and visualize patterns evinced by the inmates of the Boston Almshouse during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Although the conclusions apply to a short time period and a particular subset of the population, they should elicit further research about how marginalized groups navigated the city of Boston, as well as other eighteenth-century cities

Estatura Y Condiciones De Vida En Tiempos De Morelos

¿Cuánto medía Morelos? ¿Un metro y medio? ¿Era de estatura media? Lo que implica fi nalmente preguntar: ¿cuál era la estatura media en los tiempos de Morelos? Al fi nal de esta pesquisa la respuesta a esas preguntas quedará clara. Morelos medía cerca de 1.60 cm, unos cuatro centímetros más baja que la media de los nacidos en su año (1764). Pero comparado con los nacidos en el año de su muerte (1815), la estatura de Morelos hubiera estado casi en el promedio. El caso de la estatura de Morelos es una anécdota, pero el ejercicio que nos permite estimar su estatura y su posición relativa en el promedio no lo es. Esta investigación rastrea a través del análisis de miles de observaciones de estatura cómo cambiaron las condiciones de vida material de los sectores populares en México a fi nales de la colonia y a principios de la era independiente (más precisamente entre 1730 y 1840). La conclusión es que hubo una caída pronunciada que comenzó en el periodo colonial, pero que continuó despues de la Independencia. Si hacia fi nal del periodo bajo estudio la estatura de Morelos sería considerada mediana, fue en parte porque su deseo de formular leyes que “moderen la opulencia y la indigencia, y de tal suerte que se aumente el jornal del pobre” no tuvo ningún correlato con lo que ocurrió, al menos en los primeros años tras la Independencia

Explicando las brechas del desarrollo humano en la Argentina de la belle époque

This essay puts Pablo Schiaffino’s contribution in the broader framework of the history of human development in Argentina. It brings recent research in real wages and adult heights as indicators of income and health. Heights and wages both align with Schiaffino’s ranking of regions and reinforce the notion that the gaps in human development were enormous in Argentina in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The essay concludes with some suggestions for future research emphasizing the study of the institutional arrangements of public education policies and considering the role of credit scarcity in human capital formation.Este ensayo considera los factores ingreso y salud en la evaluación de la hipótesis de Schiaffino que argumenta que las desigualdades regionales y sociales de la Argentina redujeron el impacto del desarrollo económico agroexportador y las políticas educativas de fines del siglo XIX y principios del XX. Tanto los salarios reales como las estaturas apuntan a pronunciadas desigualdades dentro del país, comparables a las brechas observadas entre el sur y el norte de Europa. Finalmente, el ensayo concluye con sugerencias para una agenda de investigación que estudie las diferencias en los mecanismos institucionales de educación pública, y que considere el rol de las restricciones de crédito en la formación de capital humano

Towards an Anthropometric History of Latin America in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

We examine the evolution of adult female heights in twelve Latin American countries during the second half of the twentieth century based on demographic health surveys and related surveys compiled from national and international organizations. Only countries with more than one survey were included, allowing us to cross-examine surveys and correct for biases. We first show that average height varies significantly according to location, from 148.3 cm in Guatemala to 158.8 cm in Haiti. The evolution of heights over these decades behaves like indicators of human development, showing a steady increase of 2.6 cm from the 1950s to the 1990s. Such gains compare favorably to other developing regions of the world, but not so much with recently developed countries. Height gains were not evenly distributed in the region, however. Countries that achieved higher levels of income, such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, gained on average 0.9 cm per decade, while countries with shrinking economies, such as Haiti and Guatemala, only gained 0.25 cm per decade

Inequality, living standards and growth: two centuries of economic development in Mexico

Historical wage and incomes data are informative both as normative measures of living standards, and as indicators of patterns of economic development. We show that, given limited historical data, median incomes are most appropriate for measuring welfare and inequality, while urban unskilled wages can be used to test dualist models of development. We present a new dataset including both series in Mexico from 1800 to 2015 and find that both have historically failed to keep up with aggregate growth: per worker GDP is now over eight times higher than in the nineteenth century, while unskilled urban real wages are only 2.2 times higher, and median incomes only 2.0 times. From the perspective of inequality and social welfare, our findings confirm that there is no automatic positive relationship between economic growth and rising living standards for the majority. From the perspective of development, we argue that these findings are consistent with a dual economy model based on Lewis’s assumption of a reserve army of labour, and explain why Kuznets's predicted decline in inequality has not occurred

Climate effects and stature since 1800

During the last 30 years, economic and social historians have collected and analysed large amounts of anthropometric data in order to explore key aspects of the human past. Attention has also been devoted to the examination of factors that can exert an influence on stature. This article outlines the different ways in which climate might influence stature, either directly or indirectly. It then uses Geographical Information System (GIS) software to explore the relationship between variations in temperature and precipitation and the average heights of men in France, India, Mexico, Spain and the United States (US) over the last two centuries. It is possible to observe an influence of climate on stature in some countries, especially during the nineteenth century, but the relationship weakens across time and largely disappears in recent decades. The attenuation of this relationship is attributed to a process of “technophysio evolution” as countries modernised and developed economically

Patients assessment of therapists´ self disclosure in their treatments: A qualitative research

En el marco de una psicoterapia los pacientes obtienen información sobre sus terapeutas, ya sea por situaciones circunstanciales o porque ellos mismos las revelan. En el ámbito internacional el uso de la autorrevelación (AR) por parte de los terapeutas sigue siendo controversial, y específicamente en Latinoamérica muchos terapeutas desconocen los resultados de las últimas investigaciones basándose en la intuición o en prescripciones desactualizadas tanto al hacer revelaciones como al restringir información a los pacientes. El objetivo de la presente investigación empírica, de corte cualitativo, fue indagar las experiencias y opiniones de personas que habían transitado por un tratamiento psicoterapéutico, en relación a la AR de sus terapeutas. Para ello se administraron 55 entrevistas a pacientes que realizaron variedad de tratamientos individuales y privados en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Se analizaron las transcripciones utilizando la metodología CQR, y se encontraron 56 categorías organizadas en 5 dominios: Actitud del paciente frente a la AR del terapeuta/ Actitud del terapeuta hacia la AR/ Contenido de las AR/ Valoración que los pacientes hacen de la AR del terapeuta/ Motivo que consideran que tuvo el terapeuta para revelar información personal. Típicamente los terapeutas realizaron pocos o aislados comentarios sobre su vida, mayoritariamente sobre aspectos demográficos. Los pacientes eran respetuosos de la información que brindaban los terapeutas pero mostraron interés en conocer algunos datos de sus vidas. Asimismo relacionan con "afianzamiento de la relación terapéutica" y "humanización del terapeuta" las ocasiones en que éstos revelaron alguna experiencia. Se discuten las implicancias de estos resultados para la clínica.Fil: Olivera, Julieta. Universidad de la Marina Mercante; ArgentinaFil: Manubens, Rocío Tamara. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Psicología; ArgentinaFil: Challú, Laura. Universidad de Belgrano. Departamento de Investigaciones. Instituto de Psicología Clinica; ArgentinaFil: Brnich, María Paz. Universidad de Belgrano. Departamento de Investigaciones. Instituto de Psicología Clinica; ArgentinaFil: Roussos, Andres Jorge. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Belgrano. Departamento de Investigaciones. Instituto de Psicología Clinica; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Psicología. Instituto de Investigaciones; Argentin

Propiedades psicométricas del Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL-11) en Argentina: Un instrumento para monitoreo y feedback en psicoterapia

We failed to find brief instruments validated in Argentina to explore and monitor psychological symptoms from psychotherapy patients. This paper presents the Argentinian adaptation of the Hopkins Symptoms Checklist (HSCL-11) and analyzes its psychometric properties. A sample of 356 participants completed the HSCL-11 adaptation, along with other measures of depression, anxiety, and well-being. We analyzed Cronbach’s alpha and item-total correlations adjusted. We ran confirmatory factor analysis, correlations among the measures, and  examined differences in HSCL-11 between subjects who were psychotherapy patients and those who were not. We found evidence of adequate internal consistency and item homogeneity, as well as construct validity, concurrent validity, and criterion validity. Results showed evidence of reliability and validity for the HSCL-11 Argentinian adaptation, suggesting that it might represent a meaningful resource for the evaluation and treatment of mental disorders in Argentina.No se han encontrado instrumentos breves válidos en Argentina para monitorear sintomatología psicológica en psicoterapia. Este trabajo presenta la adaptación argentina del Hopkins Symptoms Checklist (HSCL-11) y estudia sus propiedades psicométricas. Una muestra de 356 participantes completó la adaptación del HSCL-11 junto con medidas de depresión, ansiedad y bienestar. Se computaron el coeficiente alfa de Cronbach y correlaciones ítem-total corregidas. Se realizó un análisis factorial confirmatorio, se estudiaron sus correlaciones con las otras medidas y se analizaron las diferencias en HSCL-11 entre pacientes y no pacientes de terapia. Se observaron evidencias de adecuada consistencia interna y homogeneidad de ítems, así como también de validez de constructo, validez concurrente y validez de criterio. Los resultados mostraron evidencias deconfiabilidad y validez de la versión argentina del HSCL-11, sugiriendo que podría representar un instrumento valioso para la evaluación y el tratamiento de patologías mentales en el país