Marco Gracia, Francisco J.González Esteban, Ángel Luis2024-12-232024-12-232021-10Francisco J. Marco-Gracia, Ángel Luis González-Esteban, Did parental care in early life affect height? Evidence from rural Spain (19th-20th centuries), Social Science & Medicine, Volume 287, 2021, 114394, ISSN 0277-9536, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114394.0277-9536https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114394https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/25041La versión registrada de este artículo, publicado por primera vez en Social Science & Medicine, Volume 287, 2021, 114394, ISSN 0277-9536, está disponible en línea en el sitio web del editor: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114394. The copyrighted version of this article, first published in Social Science & Medicine, Volume 287, 2021, 114394, ISSN 0277-9536, is available online at the publisher's website: https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.socscimed.2021.114394.This article examines the relationship between childhood mortality experienced within families and the height of surviving male children. Sibling mortality, controlled by different socioeconomic and environmental variables, is used as an approximation of the hygienic and epidemiological context and practices within the family. The analysis is based on a sample of 2783 individuals born between 1835 and 1977 in 14 villages in north-eastern Spain. The mortality data were obtained from the parish archives of the reference villages, and the height data from military service records of conscriptions at 21 years of age. The data were linked according to nominative criteria using family reconstitution methods. The results suggest the existence of a strong negative relationship between height and the childhood mortality experienced within families. Children born in families in which 50% of the children died before the age of five were up to 2.3 cm shorter than those of families with childhood mortality of less than 25%. General socioeconomic, hygienic and health improvements reduced childhood mortality, causing this link to gradually disappear between the 1940s and 1970s.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess53 Ciencias EconómicasartículoHeightshealthearly lifehygienemortalityrural spainanthropometrylife outcomes