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Age heaping is widely employed as an indicator of human capital, more specifically of numeracy. We re-examine the age heaping–numeracy link in the light of evidence from nineteenth-century Italian censuses, in which education explains little of the variation in age heaping. We argue that in general age heaping is most plausibly interpreted as an indicator of cultural, economic, and institutional modernization rather than a straightforward measure of individual cognitive skills. We do not rule out the use of age heaping as a numeracy indicator, but this needs to be done with research designs that are alert to historical specificities of the context under investigation.

This thesis studies the human capital development of the Middle East over the long run, covering the period 1500 to 2010. It analyses trends in the human capital of different countries of the region, focusing on the 19th and 20th centuries and enabling an overview of numeracy in the Middle East since the late Middle Ages. Trends in education and human capital are studied to analyze the human capital development of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. The hypothesis of experiencing a “Curse of Resources” is tested in the Middle East and South Asia during the 19th and 20th centuries. We test whether the extraction of oil influenced the region’s human capital negatively. An overview of numeracy development in the Ottoman, Turkish and Arabic provinces is given as well. We use the age heaping technique and calculate the numeracy levels of the inhabitants of different provinces in today’s Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Palestine; to conclude that religion played a role in determining human capital. The effect of secularism on human capital in Turkey is discussed in addition to the influence of the reforms that took place in Egypt in the 19th century. In this thesis; the influences of religion, gender, occupation, ethnicity, secularism and oil production on human capital are tested for the Middle East. In addition to the years of schooling, the age heaping technique is the core method used to measure numeracy within the regions studied. Various sets of census data from the region are used throughout the analysis, relying on basic numerical skills level as an indicator of human capital.

Age heaping-based numeracy indicators have served as valuable tools to derive basic human capital estimates, especially for periods where other indicators are unavailable. However, the accuracy of individual age statements usually remains unknown, and due to the lack of precise information it can only assumed that excessive occurrence of multiples of five in age distributions reflects inferior numerical skills. We address this lacuna by identifying 162 individuals in two independent data sources, self-reported age statements and independently kept records which are based on family heritage books and church registers. This method allows us to identify individual misreporting and the degree of accuracy of each individual. We find that not everyone who reports a multiple of five reports an incorrect age, nor everyone who reports an age that is not a multiple of five reports an accurate age. In an empirical analysis we show that the commonly used binary numeracy indicator is correlated with the observed degree of accuracy in age statements, and that a more sophisticated occupational background reduces this inaccuracy. Our tentative results suggest that the commonly used binary indicator measuring age heaping is a valuable proxy of the numerical skills and occupational background in a population.

Special Issue on Latin American Inequality. This paper explores the inequality of numeracy and education by studying school years and numeracy of the rich and poor, as well as of tall and short individuals. To estimate numeracy, the age-heaping method is used for the 18th to early 20th centuries. Testing the hypothesis that globalization might have increased the inequality of education, we find evidence that 19th century globalization actually increased inequality in Latin America, but 20th century globalization had positive effects by reducing educational inequality in a broader sample of developing countries. Moreover, we find strong evidence for Kuznets’s inverted U hypothesis, that is, rising educational inequality with GDP per capita in the period until 1913 and the opposite after 1945. En este artículo se estudia la inequidad en la alfabetización matemática –numeracy- y en la educación analizando los años de escolarización y alfabetización matemática de ricos y pobres, ya sean individuos altos o bajos. Para estimar la alfabetización matemática utilizamos el método age heaping para los siglos XVIII y XIX. Contrastando la hipótesis de que la globalización puede haber incrementado la inequidad educacional, encontramos evidencias de que la globalización del siglo XIX aumentó esta inequidad mientras la globalización del siglo XX tuvo, sin embargo, efectos positivos en la reducción de la inequidad educacional en una amplia muestra de países en desarrollo. Además, hemos encontrado evidencias que confirman la hipótesis de la U invertida de Kuznets: una relación positiva entre la inequidad educacional y el PBI per cápita en el período anterior a 1913 y lo opuesto en el período posterior a 1945. The ESF-GlobalEuroNet and EU HIPOD projects.

This article outlines the development of gender disparities in education for 28 Latin American and Caribbean countries for the period from 1880 to 1949, using age heaping techniques. We explore in particular the hypothesis of a Ushaped development of women’s education during economic development, i.e., a decrease in gender equality at lower levels of overall education, and increasing gender equality at higher levels. For the downward sloping part, we find some evidence, although this part is relatively small. The upward sloping part is strongly confirmed. We also find that non-Hispanic Caribbean countries had substantially lower gender inequality rates than Latin American countries. A second major contribution is to document the development of average numerical abilities (of both genders) in these 28 countries. En este artículo se estudian las disparidades de género en numeracy para veintiocho países de América Latina y el Caribe en el período de 1880 a 1949. Con este propósito, el trabajo explora el alcance del denominado «age heaping», el cual suministra una valiosa información sobre la tendencia de las personas a redondear su edad lo cual, indirectamente, proporciona información sobre los cambios en el nivel educativo de un país en el largo plazo. En particular investigamos la hipótesis de un desarrollo en forma «U», es decir, el incremento de las disparidades de género para niveles de educación bajos y la reducción de estas disparidades para niveles de desarrollo más altos. En este sentido, la parte superior de la curva está plenamente confirmada, sin embargo, en la parte inferior con una trayectoria relativamente pequeña, encontramos sólo débiles evidencias. A partir de esta nueva línea de investigación, los resultados del estudio evidencian que por un lado, los países del Caribe no hispánicos tuvieron tasas de desigualdad educativa sustancialmente más bajas que los países latinoamericanos y, por el otro, que la totalidad de los veintiocho países de la muestra ofrecen un incremento en la media de las «habilidades numéricas » para ambos sexos en el período.

Does the shift from subsistence agriculture to a specialization in cash-crop production affect human capital? We assess the influence of the rapid expansion of the cultivation of cash crops for export in the mid and late 19th century Philippines, with a focus on the increase or decline of basic numeracy. Based on the historiography, we expect the expansion of cash crops (in 19th century Philippines, mostly abacá, sugar, and tobacco) to have a negative effect on human capital of the majority of the population during the first phase. To test this hypothesis, we mobilize a new and large data set based on age statements from parish records, which includes 228,853 underlying observations. This is the first long term quantitative study on numeracy in a Southeast Asian country. We aggregate the individual observations by 41 provinces and the birth decades from the 1800s to the 1930s in order to obtain a large and informative panel (panel observations based on less than 50 underlying age statements are dropped). This allows us to compare regional levels of numeracy before, during, and after the introduction of the three main cash crops.

This article outlines the development of gender disparities in education for 28 Latin American and Caribbean countries for the period from 1880 to 1949, using age heaping techniques. We explore in particular the hypothesis of a Ushaped development of women’s education during economic development, i.e., a decrease in gender equality at lower levels of overall education, and increasing gender equality at higher levels. For the downward sloping part, we find some evidence, although this part is relatively small. The upward sloping part is strongly confirmed. We also find that non-Hispanic Caribbean countries had substantially lower gender inequality rates than Latin American countries. A second major contribution is to document the development of average numerical abilities (of both genders) in these 28 countries. En este artículo se estudian las disparidades de género en numeracy para veintiocho países de América Latina y el Caribe en el período de 1880 a 1949. Con este propósito, el trabajo explora el alcance del denominado «age heaping», el cual suministra una valiosa información sobre la tendencia de las personas a redondear su edad lo cual, indirectamente, proporciona información sobre los cambios en el nivel educativo de un país en el largo plazo. En particular investigamos la hipótesis de un desarrollo en forma «U», es decir, el incremento de las disparidades de género para niveles de educación bajos y la reducción de estas disparidades para niveles de desarrollo más altos. En este sentido, la parte superior de la curva está plenamente confirmada, sin embargo, en la parte inferior con una trayectoria relativamente pequeña, encontramos sólo débiles evidencias. A partir de esta nueva línea de investigación, los resultados del estudio evidencian que por un lado, los países del Caribe no hispánicos tuvieron tasas de desigualdad educativa sustancialmente más bajas que los países latinoamericanos y, por el otro, que la totalidad de los veintiocho países de la muestra ofrecen un incremento en la media de las «habilidades numéricas » para ambos sexos en el período.

This study is the first to explore long-run trends of numeracy for the 1820-1949 period in 165 countries, and its contribution to growth. Estimates of the long-run numeracy development of most countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, America, and Europe are presented, using age-heaping techniques. Assessing the determinants of numeracy, we find school enrolment as well as Chinese instruments of number learning to have been particularly important. We also study the contribution of numeracy as measured by the age-heaping strategy for long-run economic growth. In a variety of specifications, numeracy mattered quite strongly for growth patterns around the globe.

Age data frequently display excess frequencies at round or attractive ages, such as even numbers and multiples of five. This phenomenon of age heaping has been viewed as a problem in previous research, especially in demography and epidemiology. We see it as an opportunity and propose its use as a measure of human capital that can yield comparable estimates across a wide range of historical contexts. A simulation study yields methodological guidelines for measuring and interpreting differences in age heaping, while analysis of contemporary and historical datasets demonstrates the existence of a robust correlation between age heaping and literacy at both the individual and aggregate level. To illustrate the method, we generate estimates of human capital in Europe over the very long run, which support the hypothesis of a major increase in human capital preceding the industrial revolution.

This paper uses the ability to recall one’s age correctly as an indicator of numeracy. We show that low levels of nutrition impaired numeracy in industrializing England, 1780-1850. Numeracy declined markedly among those born during the war years, especially where wheat was dear. England’s nascent welfare state mitigated the negative effect of high food prices on cognitive skills. Nutrition during early development mattered for labor market outcomes: individuals born in periods or countries with high age heaping were more likely to sort into occupations with limited intellectual requirements.