Little Women

To be completed by December 2007 This paper analyses trends in the latter half of the twentieth century in the heights of Indian women. On average, there was some growth in height at maturity for the cohorts of 1950-1965 but the cohorts born in 1965-1975 experienced no growth. Many of the states exhibit trends similar to the country-average, with the notable exceptions of Kerala, which displayed monotonic growth, and Punjab & Haryana, which started off with the tallest women but then experienced a decline in average height. Both between and within-state variation in height is inversely correlated with infant mortality rates at birth, an indicator of the disease environment. The level of aggregate income at birth, a potential proxy for nutritional status, is positively correlated with height at maturity in the cross-section but this relationship is weak within states. The paper also examines levels and trends by socio-economic group. Higher caste women are taller and this differential is more or less constant over the quarter century for which we have data. Muslim women have grown faster than Hindu women. Height differentials by education and urban/rural location have widened over time although the trend in these differentials is likely to be influenced by compositional change