1 HEIGHTS OFWOMEN IN SUB-SAHARANAFRICA 1950- 1980: AN ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE

Did the Sub-Sahara African economies catch up to the developed countries in the 1950s to 1980s? Based on heights as an indicator for human well being this article presents evidence that there is still a long way for achieving convergence. Additionally, we explore the impact of various socio-economic, nutritional and health variables like GDP per capita, infant mortality rates, national food supply on heights. The most remarkable result is that the heights of the African societies stagnated or followed an inverted U indicating a nutritional or health crisis especially in the years 1965-1975. Therefore, this region appears as an important exception from the worldwide trend of upward-sloping heights. The panel data set was derived from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) conducted by Macro International. Although designed for other purposes, namely fertility and health issues, heights of approximately 90000 mothers were recorded. In order to determine the magnitude of potential biases we compared the heights of mothers with the heights of women exemplary for the Ivory Coast