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Article
Korean Living Standards
under Japanese Colonial Rule:
A Critical Review of the Longitudinal
Trajectory of Stature*
Tay JEONG
e Review of Korean Studies Volume 20 Number 2 (December 2017): 145-174
©2017 by the Academy of Korean Studies. All rights reserved.
146 e Review of Korean Studies
Introduction
Korean living standards during the colonial period (1910-1945) became a
highly controversial topic in South Korea in recent decades. Nationalist and
Marxist historiography that characterized the modern history scholarship in
South Korea throughout the latter half of the twentieth century commonly
acknowledged that Koreans underwent a decline in living standards under
Japanese colonial rule. Such an understanding did not change even amongst
the fundamental reevaluation of the significance of the colonial period
by international scholars from the mid-1980s who traced South Korea’s
developmental success to its experience of Japanese colonialism. However, from
the mid-1990s, a group of South Korean economic historians centered at the
Naksungdae Institute completely reversed traditional narratives of suering and
exploitation and argued that Koreans during the colonial period became better
o. eir arguments are backed by an extensive reconstruction of the national
accounts of the colonial period accumulated amidst the recent “cliometric
revolution” in the study of Korean economic history (Kim and Park 2012).
Indicators of living standards such as food consumption and real wage, which
were previously estimated to have decreased or stagnated over the colonial
period, were now argued to have stagnated or even increased. Its quantitative
rigor notwithstanding, the revisionist thesis that even the Korean masses became
better o under Japanese colonial rule still faces signicant opposition among
historians. Commonly coupled with ideological or political orientations, these
opposing views on Korean living standards during the colonial period persist
with meager signs of resolution or reconciliation.
is paper contributes to the current debate on Korean living standards
through a critical review of past works on Korean stature, which has been widely
employed by recent revisionist literature in conjunction with national accounts
as an evidence for improving living standards. The results obtained from the
review of stature will be juxtaposed to trends in other representative indicators
of biological living standards of the general populace, namely, wage, food
consumption, and inequality. I will conclude the article with an interpretation of
these historical statistics with regard to Korean living standards under Japanese
* I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
Korean Living Standards under Japanese Colonial Rule 147
colonial rule. In order to present the trajectory of living standards during the
colonial period in its larger historical background, I will set the temporal scale of
my analysis to include the decades immediately preceding and succeeding the
colonial period.
Stature
Past studies on Korean height during the colonial period produced diverging
estimates and interpretations. Scholars writing about Korean living standards
during the colonial period have selectively referred to estimates of Korean height
that conform to their own hypotheses while ignoring or dismissing without
sucient justication ones that do not (for example, see Cha 2012, 342). In this
section, I will conduct a comprehensive review of past works on Korean stature
during the colonial period and suggest a reasonable estimate of its historical
trajectory.
Kimura (1993, 644-47) examined the trajectory of Korean height from
several sets of fragmentary measurements during the colonial period and
concluded that there was no significant change in the stature of the Korean
masses. Kimura’s analysis provided limited information since all height data
were obtained from one-time measurements of diverse small-size samples that
can only very roughly be controlled for class and region. In order to have a
more reliable estimate of height trends, we need large time-series data from a
consistent sample, which Kimura could not nd in his early research.
e rst and the hitherto most comprehensive time-series data on Korean
height during the colonial period were the insurants’ and dependents’ height
data from the Korea Medical Insurance Corporation (KMIC) first presented
by Gill (1995, 1998).1 e insurants’ heights were measured twice in 1990 and
1994, and the dependents’ heights were measured once in 1993.2 e data sets
contained ample numbers of people born during the colonial period, but the
measured heights could not be used at face value because human height shrinks
1. KMIC is an organization in South Korea that oers health insurance to “all civil employees,
school teachers and their dependents” (Gill 1998, 123).
2. e insurants were the insured civil employees and school teachers.
148 e Review of Korean Studies
with old age.
To eliminate the effect of height shrinkage, Gill calculated height
differences between identical age groups measured in 1990 and in 1994.
The negative value for the year 1932 in Figure 1 indicates that the average
height of 62-year old males measured in 1994 (i.e., born in 1932) is shorter
than the average height of 62-year old males measured in 1990 (i.e., born in
1928). Doing the same calculation for all available 4-year birth intervals in the
insurants’ sample showed that male average height decreased since the birth
cohorts of the mid-1920s (namely, starting from the 4-year interval of 1924-
1928) until around independence, and started to rise from circa 1950 (starting
from the 4-year interval of 1948-1952). Height trends in the birth cohorts
before the mid-1920s could not be examined this way because of few or
nonexistent measurements in the insurants’ sample. e sudden reversal from
a positive to a negative trend in the mid-1920s indicated in Figure 1 might be
due to small samples, although the positive values of the mid-1920s do point to
the possibility that average height may have been increasing in the early colonial
years. Overall, Gill’s research strongly suggests that average height decreased
from the birth cohorts of the mid-1920s until the Korean War (1950-1953) and
embarked on a sustained increase thereafter. However, in order to nd out the
trend before the mid-1920s, one would need to look at other sources including
the KMIC dependents’ sample that contains a large number of measurements
of earlier birth cohorts. Unfortunately, Gill’s method for eliminating height
shrinkage with age could not be applied to the dependents’ sample because their
heights were measured only once.
Figure 1. Change in KMIC Male Insurants’ Height
Source: Graph re-drawn from Gill (1995, 323)
Korean Living Standards under Japanese Colonial Rule 149
Gill’s KMIC height data were subsequently analyzed by Choi (2006), Joo
(2006), and Choi and Schwekendiek (2009). Choi (2006) used the 1993
dependents’ height sample to examine the birth cohorts of the entire colonial
period. Choi (2006) used a height shrinkage function that he constructed from
various contemporary medical sources.3 The resulting trajectory of Korean
height drew an inverse U-shape curve from the late nineteenth century until the
end of the colonial period with its peak at the birth cohort of 1926—a nding
largely consistent with Gill’s analysis of the trend in insurants’ height. Choi
(2006) applied the same adjustment to the 1990 and 1994 insurants’ height
sample and came up with a similar yet more pronounced trend of decreasing
height since the mid-1920s until shortly after independence. Choi (2006)
complemented his ndings with various other sources including samples from
Korea Industrial Advancement Association (KIAA) and Seodaemun prisoners’
account, none of which has the level of reliability as the KMIC data set. e
Seodaemun prisoners’ account helped draw the left side of the hypothesized
inverse U-shape curve by showing an increasing trend since the birth cohorts of
the mid-1880s up to the mid-1910s, although the reliability of this sample was
reduced by small size and a potential sampling bias.
Figure 2. Male Height Trends in Choi (2006)
Source: Graph re-drawn from Choi (2006, 70)
3. See Choi 2006, 65-66 for details.
150 e Review of Korean Studies
In contrast to Choi (2006) whose results were largely consistent with Gill
(1995), Joo (2006) rejected Gill’s argument that average height decreased from
the birth cohorts of the mid-1920s. Instead of refuting Gill’s analysis of the
insurants’ height data, Joo analyzed the 1993 dependents’ height sample and
concluded that Korean average height by birth cohort increased slightly yet
continuously throughout the colonial period. However, Joo (2006) used an
overly simplistic and arbitrary assumption of a height shrinkage rate of 0.4 cm
every 4 years, which critically weakened the plausibility of his analysis.
Choi and Schwekendiek (2009) used three main data sets, namely the
previously-analyzed KMIC 1993 dependents’ height data and Seodaemun
prisoners’ register, plus a new data set from Korean Agency for Technology
and Standards (ATS). As in Choi (2006), the KMIC data provided the most
comprehensive statistical coverage. e ATS data set is available only in annual
averages and has a relatively small sample. The most important difference
of Choi and Schwekendiek (2009) from Choi (2006) is in the function for
estimating height shrinkage with aging. is time, the function was taken from
a well-known research by Cline et al. (1989) that derived a height shrinkage
function through empirical anthropometric research. The result, instead of
an inverse U-shape curve previously estimated in Choi (2006), was a trend of
continuous increase throughout the colonial period (see Figure 3).
e above review of past literature reveals that the KMIC insurants’ and
dependents’ height data have been the only reliable time-series data used by
all studies on Korean stature (the relatively recent paper by Kim and Park is
an exception, which will be discussed shortly below). In particular, the 1993
dependents’ height data received a lot of attention as it covers the entire colonial
period with minimal class bias. However, the problem with the 1993 KMIC
dependents’ sample is that the estimation of height varies widely depending on
the function used to adjust for height shrinkage (see Figure 3). One must admit
the diculty at this point to give full credibility to a certain function since no
information is available on how fast the KMIC dependents’ heights decreased
with age despite various authors’ attempts to apply a reasonable adjustment.
For example, the height shrinkage function in Cline et al. (1989) used by Choi
and Schwekendiek (2009) was calculated from samples in twentieth-century
Arizona and most likely underestimated the magnitude of height shrinkage
in the KMIC samples since the statures of populations with lower living
standards tend to shrink in a steeper curve than the those with higher living
Korean Living Standards under Japanese Colonial Rule 151
standards. Choi and Schwekendiek’s argument that Korean average height
grew continuously throughout the colonial period was likely a result of an
underestimation of the degree of height shrinkage of the early birth cohorts in
the KMIC dependents’ sample.
Other height shrinkage functions currently available in the academic
literature do not oer any reliable height adjustment for Koreans under Japanese
rule either. The height shrinkage function presented by Chandler and Bock
(1991) was based on samples from Western Australia measured in the latter half
of the twentieth century, which in fact shows a steeper rate of height shrinkage
than Cline et al. (1989). A better candidate would be the functions presented
by Morgan (2009) constructed based on the height data of Canton Chinese
immigrants in Western and Southern Australia measured in the former half
of the twentieth century. However, even these Cantonese-Australians likely
had higher biological living standards than the average Korean under Japanese
colonial rule, especially considering the fact that they all belonged to the group
of Chinese immigrants who could aord to make multiple trips to China. e
statistical difficulty of processing the height data induced Morgan to come
up with two significantly different height reduction functions, which also
reduces the prospect of any naïve application to our case in colonial Korea (see
Figure 4 in Morgan 2009 for a visual comparison of dierent height shrinkage
functions).4
4. My analysis would have been made visually more appealing if these height shrinkage
functions could be applied to the original KMIC male dependents’ height data and compared
side-by-side in a graph similar to Figure 3. e actual trajectory of the KMIC dependents’
height by birth cohort would have reected a larger degree of adjustment for older samples
than any of the existing height adjustment functions that were derived from populations
with higher living standards (and thus would have made the decrease in height since the
1920s quite pronounced as is visible in the KMIC insurants’ sample). My failure to retrieve
the original data le (which, to the best of my knowledge, was never published anywhere)
prevented me from undertaking such an analysis. Professor Gill is no longer academically
active and apparently not in a situation to be contacted, and I failed to retrieve it from the
several authors who had obtained the data from Prof. Gill in the past and used them in their
research. Nevertheless, the non-availability of the actual height data does not hinder the basic
logic of my argument that none of these presently available height shrinkage functions oer
a reliable adjustment for the KMIC dependents’ sample and most likely underestimate the
actual rate of height shrinkage with aging among Koreans under Japanese rule.
152 e Review of Korean Studies
Figure 3. Post-adjustment KMIC Male Dependents’ Average Height by Researcher
Source: Graph combined and re-drawn from Choi (2006),
Joo (2006), and Choi and Schwekendiek (2009)
The question of how representative Gill’s finding of a continuous decrease in
average height from the birth cohorts of the mid-1920s is of the overall Korean
population has been an important topic of debate among researchers. The
KMIC insurants’ sample was the only data set that could trace the trajectory
of Korean average height nearly immune from the eects of height shrinkage
with aging, and any arguments for a continuous increase in Korean height
over the colonial period had to refute the results obtained from the insurants’
sample. Choi (2006) and Choi and Schwekendiek (2009) criticized the
insurants’ sample for a class bias, and the latter even completely excluded it
from their analysis. Although the presence of a class bias in the insurants’ sample
is evident, I argue that it is still a more reliable indicator of the overall height
trend compared to other height data from which the eects of aging on height
cannot be reliably eliminated. In particular, the decreasing trend from the 1920s
shown in the insurants’ sample was likely to have been mirrored among the
lower classes: Deteriorating nutritional intake and increasing numbers of pauper
households that characterized the latter half of the colonial period (discussed
in more detail in the next section) makes it highly unlikely that the masses’
average height increased while those of the “middle class” decreased. A mere
acknowledgement that the heights of different classes or occupations do not
always move in the same direction is not a very convincing reason to discredit
Korean Living Standards under Japanese Colonial Rule 153
the decreasing height trend in the KMIC insurants’ sample after the mid-1920s
as being applicable only to the members of the relatively privileged classes and
not to the general public (Choi 2006, 67; Choi and Schwenkendiek 2009,
260).
In 2011, a different set of large longitudinal height data was published
by Naksungdae economic historians Kim and Park. The authors analyzed
the heights of hangryu deceased—dead persons “who did not have any
acquaintances to claim the body”—in the colonial period (Kim and Park 2011,
590). The authors found a steadily growing average height of 25 to 30-year-
old hangryu decreased throughout the period 1910-1942 with a total increase
of 2.2 cm. While the authors did not accurately spell out what their analysis of
height meant for Korean living standards, they insinuated support for the claim
that Koreans became better o throughout the colonial period by placing their
work in line with ndings of robustly improving GDP, wage, life expectancy,
and death rate. However, the data from hangryu deceased is not inconsistent
with the inverse U-shape hypothesis tentatively implied by Gill (1995) and
explicitly argued by Choi (2006) that Kim and Park (2011) attempted to
disprove because their data set concerns the birth cohorts of 1880-1917, which
corresponds to the left side of the formerly hypothesized inverse U-shape curve.5
Kim and Park’s analysis actually helps draw the left portion of the hypothesized
inverse U-shape curve by providing previously unavailable large time-series
height data on the birth cohorts of the pre-colonial and early colonial period.
5. Although this criticism might seem too obvious, the review of literature presented in Kim
and Park (2011) contains inaccurate or contestable summaries of past works on Korean height
and raises doubt on whether the authors have carefully examined past studies on Korean
height amongst which they positioned their new contribution. For example, their statement
that “Gill (1995, 1998), Choi (2006), and Choi and Schwekendiek (2009) indicated that
the trend in Korean stature exhibited an inverse U-shape, with its peak occurring around
the mid-1920s. ese results suggest that Korean living standards improved up to the mid-
1920s before proceeding to stagnate” is puzzling. As reviewed in detail in above, Choi and
Schwekendiek (2009) did not claim an inverse U-shape trajectory of Korean height, and
Gill (1995, 1998) and Choi (2006) explicitly mentioned that Korean height decreased after
the mid-1920s. Gill acknowledged the fall in living standards, while Choi (2006) was more
cautious about linking the decline in height with corresponding fall in living standards.
154 e Review of Korean Studies
Figure 4. Mean Height of Male Hangryu Deceased 1880-1917
Source: Graph re-drawn from Kim and Park (2011)
A falling trend of Korean male height after the mid-1920s resembles the
“antebellum puzzle,” which refers to the phenomenon of declining US male
height amongst robust economic growth in the decades before the American
Civil War. Similar trends are also observed in the early industrialization processes
of numerous other countries, including the UK and Germany. Korea after 1930
could be another example of the antebellum puzzle since it was going through
early industrialization and according to some estimates experiencing a sustained
increase in per capita GDP (Naksungdae Institute 2012).6 What implication
does the possibility that colonial Korea was another case of the antebellum
puzzle have for our understanding of Korean living standards? Joo (2006)
argued that even if heights decreased after 1930, one cannot conclude that
there was a decrease in living standards because whether the antebellum puzzle
was caused by a decline in living standards is still debated among economic
historians. Admittedly, “dimensions of well-being may not move in the same
direction,” so height data alone cannot provide a comprehensive explanation of
living standards (Komlos 2012, 5). However, there is now a consensus among
economic historians that the antebellum puzzle was caused by a decline in food
consumption (Komlos 2012, 1). If one interprets Korea in the 1930s as another
6. Estimates of per capita GDP by the Naksungdae Institute can be accessed from http://www.
naksung.re.kr/xe/statis2012.
Korean Living Standards under Japanese Colonial Rule 155
case of the antebellum puzzle, one would at least have to acknowledge its
connection to nutritional intake, of which deterioration has also been disputed
by recent revisionist research.
In this section, I analyzed previous works on Korean stature during and
immediately before and after the colonial period. A critical review and synthesis
of previous works on Korean height suggest that Korean height increased from
the birth cohorts of the late nineteenth century into the early colonial period,
reversed sometime in the 1920s to a downward trend, and reversed again
around 1950 to a trend of a sustained increase.
In the next section, I will examine other indicators of biological living
standards for two interrelated purposes. The first has to do with confirming
the longitudinal trajectory of height I estimated from height data alone. As the
available height data arguably lacks the resolution required for knowledge, I am
compelled to check my height estimates against other closely related indices of
biological living standards and see if I can draw any additional confirmation
from them. e second has to do with the project of inferring living standards
from various types of evidence. If the trajectory of height could be shown to
coincide with those of other indicators of biological living standards, we would
be able to present the actual trajectory of the biological living standards of the
Korean population during the colonial period with a high level of condence.
Due to constraints in volume, I will limit the scope of my review to
three indicators of biological living standards: wage, food consumption, and
inequality. Wage is examined as a proxy for income in the overall absence
of other sources of income among the Korean masses. Income is a central
determinant of biological and material living standards, and there is a strong
correlation between income and stature (Steckel 1995). Also, “income is the
most important determinant of diet,” which closely connects it to the next
indicator, food consumption (Steckel 1983, 2). Food consumption is largely
analogous with caloric intake, which “is a reasonably reliable indicator of
nutrition” (Steckel 1983, 2), and “nutrition is the most important external factor
affecting linear growth” as human height reflects the cumulative effect of net
nutrition during the growth period (Perkins et al. 2008, 153). Finally, as wage
and food consumption data are only available in per capita averages and reveal
nothing about their distribution among the population, I will also explicitly
examine the trajectory of economic “inequality” to compliment the inference of
biological living standards from the other two indicators.
156 e Review of Korean Studies
Wage, Food Consumption, and Inequality in Colonial Korea
e Pre-colonial Period
Not much data is available for estimating various indicators of opulence in
the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century immediately before
annexation. While there is now a widespread agreement among economic
historians that the Korean economy entered into an extended period of
stagnation and decline at least from the beginning of the nineteenth century, it
is also generally acknowledged that the Korean economy entered into a phase of
growth from the late nineteenth century—especially after the 1890s—with its
integration into the world market (Kim and Park 2012; Cha 2012). Land rent
and nominal wage were estimated to have entered a phase of sustained increase
from the mid-1880s (see Figure 5).
Figure 5. Land Rent and Nominal Wage
Source: Graph re-drawn from Park (2006) and Lee (2000)
Despite the positive reversal of certain economic indicators in the final
decades of the nineteenth century, there is hardly any statistical data that
shows a corresponding upturn in Korean living standards. Estimates of real
rice wage show a continuous trend of decline and stagnation throughout the
late nineteenth century, casting doubt on whether there was any significant
improvement in biological living standards in the decades before annexation
(Lee 2000; Jun and Lewis 2007).
Korean Living Standards under Japanese Colonial Rule 157
e Colonial Period
Real wage
Real wage is an important indicator of living standards, especially for the
masses whose reliance on labor income is very high. Huh (1981) estimated a
stagnating trend of unskilled real wage over the colonial period with a slightly
decreasing trend after the early 1920s. While recent revisions by Naksungdae
economic historians provided a more optimistic estimate of the trajectory of
unskilled real wage, even this revised estimate clearly shows the negative trend in
the 1920s and 30s (Lee and Cha 2007, 62). Lee and Cha (2007) stressed that
unskilled wages in Korea showed a rapid rate of growth at 0.4 % per annum
for the period 1910-1942; however, even if such figure is true, calculating a
single average growth rate for the entire colonial period reveals little about the
trajectory of living standards under colonial rule, especially considering the
fact that the positive average growth rate in their revised estimates is due to the
temporary surge of wage in the early colonial period and the wartime economy
of the late colonial period.
Figure 6. Unskilled Wage (All Sectors)
Consumption
How did trends in food consumption change over the colonial period? Despite
158 e Review of Korean Studies
the uncertainty of the exact amount of rice production before 1918 and
population before 1925, it is clear that per capita rice availability continuously
decreased from the beginning of the colonial period (with the exception of the
temporary increase in the late 1930s and 40s) (Suh 1978, 86; Huh [2005] 2011,
275; Park 1996, 105). e decrease in rice availability had to be supplemented
by other grains of lower preference such as barley, millet, and soybeans, of which
consumption did not increase either. No research has refuted the fact that per
capita grain consumption decreased during the colonial period. Estimates of per
capita calorie intake from grains also show a decreasing trend even in the most
optimistic estimates from the Naksungdae Institute. e wartime 1940s, which
are not covered in most statistical estimates due to insucient data, also saw a
drastic drop in grain consumption. According to one estimate, it dropped from
an average of 1.277 suk in 1942-1944 to 1.076 in 1945 (Bank of Korea 1949,
I-63; Cha 1997, 157). This trend is roughly consistent with the height trend
discussed above, which showed a continuous decrease from the birth cohorts of
the 1920s until the Korean War.
Figure 7. Per Capita Grain Consumption
Source: Naksungdae Institute of Economic Research (2012)
(http://www.naksung.re.kr/xe/index.php?mid= statis2012&document_srl=104983 [Table II-57])
Korean Living Standards under Japanese Colonial Rule 159
Figure 8. Capita Calorie Intake from Grains
Similar to the trends in per capita grain consumption and caloric intake, per
capita expenditure on grains also shows a decreasing pattern since the early
1920s.
Figure 9. Per Capita Expenditure on Grain and Food
Source: Calculated from Terasaki (1988, 66; 283) and Park (2009)
A decrease in per capita grain consumption does not necessarily mean that per
capita food consumption fell as well. In order to examine trends in nutritional
status more accurately, one would need to look at non-grain food consumption
as well. Recent revisionist works have stressed the increase in the per capita
160 e Review of Korean Studies
consumption of non-grain foods in an eort to refute the traditionally popular
view that per capital nutritional intake decreased during the colonial period.
For example, Joo (2012, 209) argued that the increase in the consumption
of potatoes and sweet potatoes partially compensated the decrease in the
consumption of grains, resulting in a mere 10 % decrease in daily caloric
intake between 1912 and 1939. He added that increases in the consumption
of other foodstuffs such as meat, vegetables, and fish would have offset the
decrease in grain consumption to a point where there was virtually no decrease
of nutritional intake during the colonial period. Joo (2012, 208-09) estimated
that by 1939, per capita consumption of meat rose to 160 percent, fruit and
vegetables to 230 percent, marine products to 330 percent, and manufactured
foods to 250 percent of that in 1912.7 In particular, the Naksungdae economic
historians’ significant upward revision of seafood production vis-à-vis older
estimates by Suh (1978) and Asia Long-Term Historical Statistical Database
importantly contributed to their rejection of the deterioration in per capita
food consumption (Lee and Song 2012).8 While objections to decreasing food
consumption are by no means new, the Naksungdae economic historians’
recent revisionism presents a stronger argument than previous ones that focused
on expenditure instead of the actual per capita availability of various foodstus.9
As for per capita overall private consumption, there is a clear increase over
the colonial period. All estimates of per capita total private consumption show
an increasing trend from the beginning of the colonial period until around
1940. Real per capita private consumption estimates by Mizoguchi (1988) show
an enduring upward trend between 1913 and 1937 with an overall increase of
46 percent, and recent revisions from the Naksungdae Institute also indicate a
continuous increase from 1911 to 1940 with an overall growth of 71 percent.10
7. For a criticism of these estimates, see Huh 2015b.
8. Asia Long-Term Historical Statistical Database can be accessed from http://www.ier.hit-u.
ac.jp/COE/Japanese/online_data/korea/koreaj.htm.
9. Terasaki (1988, 64) estimated that real per capita expenditures on food in Korea increased
with an annual average of 0.56 % during 1913-1938. My calculations based on Mizoguchi’s
(1988) gures of total expenditure and Park’s (2011) estimates of population shown in Figure
9 also reveals that real per capital expenditure on food increased during 1913-1937.
10. Private Consumption (table I-14) and population (table I-23) estimates of the
Naksungdae Institute can be downloaded from http://www.naksung.re.kr/xe/index.
php?mid=statis2012&document_srl=104983.
Korean Living Standards under Japanese Colonial Rule 161
In sum, per capita rice and grain consumption decreased, per capita food
consumption was recently argued by revisionist scholars to have remained
stagnant thanks to a rapid increase of non-grain food consumption, and per
capita overall consumption increased over the colonial period.
Inequality
What does the above examination of wages and consumption indicate about
Korean living standards during colonial rule? Most estimates of real unskilled
wage show a stagnating trend across the colonial period, and all estimates show
a falling trend in the 1920s and 30s. Per capita rice and grain consumption
continuously decreased throughout the colonial period. Nevertheless, there is
also a range of indicators that show a signicant improvement over the colonial
period. Real per capita private consumption increased continuously during
1911-1939 (Joo 2012, 203). e average consumption of non-grain foods such
as meat, sh, and vegetables also increased markedly.
A generally observable pattern is the downward trajectory of indicators
that tend to be more equally distributed among the population (unskilled wage,
rice consumption, and grain consumption) compared to the increasing trend
of indicators with more potential for skewed distribution (non-grain foods
consumption and overall private consumption). Such consumption pattern
reveals that economic growth during the colonial period was accompanied by
increasing inequality—a fact that is consensually acknowledged by scholars.
Table 1 classies agricultural households during the colonial period according
to land possession. e rapid process of polarization of land possession is clearly
visible, especially in the 1920s and the 1930s as the Campaign to Increase Rice
Production 産米增産計劃 was taking place in Korea. Recent estimates of the
Gini Index during the colonial period show a constant increase from circa 0.35
in 1911 to almost 0.5 in 1940 (Cha 2012, 351).
162 e Review of Korean Studies
Table 1. Inequality of Landownership in Colonial Korea
Unit: (%)
Year Farmer-owners Farmer-owner-tenants Tenants
1916 20.1 40.6 36.8
1921 19.6 36.6 40.2
1926 19.1 32.4 43.3
1931 17 29.6 48.4
1936 17.9 24.1 51.9
Source: Hisama (1944, 33)
Surely, a rise in equality might just mean that the masses beneted less than the
wealthy from the fruits of economic growth (Cha 2012, 373). Couldn’t it have
been that people were getting richer on the whole and substituting grain with
a diversified diet? Statistics on the level of poverty among the Korean masses
makes such possibility highly unlikely. The proportion of pauper households
increased dramatically from 13.8 % of the entire population in 1926 to 35.5% in
1933 (Huh 2011, 284).11 Moreover, it has been repeatedly pointed out that the
wage of the average unskilled worker was insucient to support a family. Huh
(1981) showed that the wage of a coolie in 1928 was barely sucient to cover
his own expenses and insufficient to cover the necessary expenses of a family.
An early analysis of the wage and expenses of an unskilled worker in Seoul in
1936 by Grajdanzev (1944, 180-82) produced a similar conclusion. As in all
underdeveloped economies, unskilled workers and poor farmers constituted the
majority of the workforce in colonial Korea (Gill 2000). Qualitative evidence
also shows that increasing inequality was coupled with decreasing living
standards for the masses. Hisama Kenichi (1944, 347), a Japanese agricultural
economist, who worked as a tenant supervisor 小作官 in the 1930s and 1940s
in Korea wrote: “e development of agricultural production is clear in regions
where landlord functions are potent; however, it would be close to the reality to
say that the lives of peasants keep getting poorer.”12 In light of such evidence of
prevailing poverty among Korean unskilled workers and peasants, it is unlikely
11. Here, pauper households include semin 細民, households that can barely make a living without
the help of others and gungmin 窮民, households that need urgent assistance.
12. e translation is mine.
Korean Living Standards under Japanese Colonial Rule 163
that the decrease in per capita grain consumption among the masses was oset
by an increase in the consumption of other foodstuffs of higher quality. It is
hard to imagine how the masses could have consumed more fish, meat, and
vegetables as well as other non-food commodities when more and more of them
were failing to make ends meet and had to reduce their already insucient grain
consumption. The fact that there was no sustained increase in real unskilled
wage (especially in the 1920s and 30s) also casts doubt on the interpretation
that the masses were upgrading their diet with larger quantities of non-grain
food.
Post-Independence
The immediate aftermath of independence saw a collapse of the Korean
economy, which resulted in deteriorating living standards. For example, real
wage in Seoul halved during 1945-1948 and recovered only after 1949 during
the Korean War (1950-1953). The following Rhee Syngman regime was
characterized by an overall stagnation of wages. Real wage rose sharply from
the late 1960s in South Korea as it embarked on the well-known “miraculous”
growth for the next several decades (Kim and Park 2007).
Per capita grain consumption in the early 1940s deteriorated rapidly
due to wartime shortages. The deterioration per capita grain consumption
continued under the subsequent US military government rule of South Korea
(1945-1948). Rice production plummeted in South Korea as the division of
Korea stopped the ow of fertilizers from northern Korea and many peasants
sold o their oxen to purchase land from landowners who were hurriedly selling
their land for fear of conscation (Cha 1997). In addition, population increased
rapidly in South Korea from 15,879,110 in May 1944 to 19,369,270 in
August 1946, and then to 20,188,641 in May 1949 due to mass immigration
from overseas and North Korea (Statistics Korea 1993, 2). As a result, grain
availability remained poor throughout the US military government rule
despite its interdiction of rice exports to Japan (Cha 1997). Only in the early
1950s does per capita grain consumption start to recover. Such trend in grain
consumption after the colonial period is roughly consistent with the height
trend examined in the preceding section.
164 e Review of Korean Studies
Figure 10. Per Capita Grain Consumption Recovery in the 1950s
Source: South Korea Yearbook of Statistics, retrieved from Korean Statistical Information
Service (KOSIS) website. Aggregate consumption was calculated by combining production
and import. Population estimates were taken from the Naksungdae Institute.
Figure 11. Per Capita Grain Consumption 1911-1961
Source: For 1911-1940, same as Figure 7. For 1945-1947, Bank of Korea (1949). For 1951-
1961, same as Figure 10.
Economic inequality dropped signicantly after independence in South Korea.
Land reforms carried out before the Korean War (1950-1953) rapidly alleviated
the extreme inequality of the late colonial period. Since then, inequality never
rose continuously in South Korea until recent decades (Campos and Root
1996, 9).
Korean Living Standards under Japanese Colonial Rule 165
Table 2. Inequality of Landownership South Korea, 1945-1951
Unit: (%)
Year Farmer-owners Farmer-owner-tenants Tenants
1945 14.2 35.6 50.2
1947 17.0 39.6 43.4
1949 37.4 41.4 21.2
1951 80.7 15.4 3.9
Source: Korea Rural Economic Institute (1988)
In this section, I examined the trajectory of wage, consumption, and inequality
during and immediately before and after the colonial period to complement the
analysis of height presented in the preceding section. e deterioration of real
unskilled wage, grain consumption, and economic equality in the interwar years
of the 1920s and 30s and the subsequent recovery after the late 1940s and early
1950s can be observed across almost all estimates, which is in accordance with
the trajectory of Korean height indicated by the KMIC insurants’ sample.
In Lieu of a Conclusion: Interpretation of Data and Remaining
Problems
Since decolonization, it has commonly been acknowledged that most Koreans
experienced declining living standards under Japanese colonial rule. e recent
revision from South Korean economic historians centered at the Naksungdae
Institute directly opposes such an understanding and argues that Koreans, in
general, became better o under colonial rule. To evaluate the plausibility of the
recent revision of Korean living standards, I examined the trajectory of Korean
stature through a critical review of past literature. I showed that the decrease
in Korean average height from the birth cohorts of the 1920s indicated by the
KMIC insurants’ sample is a reasonable estimate compared to others that failed
to offer a reliable way to eliminate the effects of height shrinkage with aging.
Korean height by birth cohort likely decreased after sometime in the 1920s and
recovered only after independence and the ensuing Korean War. I also stressed
that the analysis of the hangryu deceased presented by Kim and Park (2011),
which was intended to refute existing works on Korean height and support the
revisionist thesis that Korean living standards improved throughout the colonial
period, actually says nothing about the birth cohorts after 1917. Kim and Park’s
166 e Review of Korean Studies
nding applies exclusively to the birth cohorts of 1880-1917 and supports the
inverse U-shape hypothesis argued by Choi (2006).
e trajectory of Korean height from the 1920s is largely consistent with
trends in other major indicators of biological living standards of the general
populace. Unskilled real wage showed an overall trend of stagnation during the
colonial period, and the 1920s and 30s likely saw a continuous decrease. Rice
and grain consumption decreased for the most part of the colonial period and
started to recover only from the early 1950s. Although per capita consumption
of non-grain foods and overall per capita private consumption increased steadily,
they were most likely accompanied by a highly skewed distribution. Revisionist
tendencies to interpret the increase in the average consumption of non-grain
foods as a result of a widespread diversification of diet among the Korean
masses lack plausibility considering the prevailing poverty of the 1920s and 30s.
Inequality surged from the mid-1920s throughout the 1930s in accordance
with deteriorating trends in height, wage, and grain consumption. By and large,
the trends in wage, consumption, and inequality roughly match that of stature
from the 1920s onwards. This result fits well with the traditionally prevalent
thesis that the masses suffered from the installation of extractive agriculture
and industry in the 1920s and 30s by the Japanese and became gradually
better o only during the economic recovery after the end of the Korean War.
e revisionist claim that Koreans—including the masses—became better o
during the colonial period appears highly questionable in light of the historical
trajectory of stature as well as relevant statistics on income, consumption, and
distribution.
Some supporters of the thesis that Korean living standards increased
robustly during the colonial period may contest that as height is affected not
only by the living standards during infancy but also during later stages of the
growth period, stature does not necessarily reflect the living standards at the
time of birth even when the two show a chronologically consistent pattern.
Therefore, a certain historical trajectory of height, even if correctly estimated,
does not single out the real trajectory of living standards that caused it and
allows at least some room for alternative explanations. One revisionist economic
historian interpreted the estimated decrease in height among the birth cohorts
in the latter half of the colonial period as a result of wartime shortages in the
late ’30s and ’40s (Joo 2006). While such reasoning is true in principle, it lacks
plausibility compared to the standard practice of interpreting height as reecting
Korean Living Standards under Japanese Colonial Rule 167
the living standards of the birth year. “Linear growth failure is largely conned to
the intrauterine period and the rst few years of life, and is caused by inadequate
diets and frequent infections” (Victora et al. 2008, 342; emphasis mine). While
some previous authors on Korean height correctly mentioned the acceleration of
growth during adolescence and pointed to the possibility of explaining attained
height by the nutritional status during adolescence, the relevant scientific
literature attests the predominant importance of the nutritional status at infancy
(<2 years old) for attained height. For example, according to Perkins et al.,
Two growth periods are important for determining adult height: growth
occurring from conception to 2 years of age, and growth occurring
during adolescence before the onset of puberty. Adult height is primarily
established during the rst growth period in early childhood, when nutritional
requirements are greater than at any subsequent time.…e second growth
period presents an opportunity for “catch-up growth”… Although there is
debate as to the extent to which catch-up growth can occur after 2 years
of age, it appears that catch-up growth is not sucient to fully make up
for deciencies in the rst growth period and achieve full potential. (2008,
150; emphasis mine)
These basic facts about human growth, coupled with the consistency of
the overall trajectory of major indicators of biological living standards with that
of stature from the birth cohorts of the 1920s onwards, strongly suggest that the
actual trajectory of living standards did not lag behind that of height by birth
cohort by any signicant margin during this period.
I will conclude the paper with a brief discussion of a lingering problem in
the above analysis of height and living standards. Contrary to the trend since
the 1920s, the estimated rapid increase in height among the birth cohorts in
the final decades of the Lee dynasty from around 1880 to the 1910s (which
is primarily supported by the data from hangryu deceased in Kim and Park
[2011]) are not easily corroborated by concurrent trends in other indicators of
living standards. As mentioned above, despite some reasons to believe that the
overall economic situation began to improve in the late nineteenth century, no
quantitative indicator of living standards produced by the “cliometric revolution”
in Korean economic history explains the increase in height in the nal several
decades of the Lee dynasty estimated by Kim and Park’s analysis of the hangryu
deceased. Did Korean living standards actually improve robustly during this
168 e Review of Korean Studies
period but are resisting our cognitive grasp because of the scarcity or biases in
remaining historical records? Or did Korean height grow even when living
standards were not yet rising? Or, perhaps, was there no increase in stature at all?
If Kim and Park’s estimates of Korean height are correct, and human
height primarily reflects the biological living standards at the time of birth,
one reaches a conclusion that seems to be more in line with the traditional
nationalist rather than revisionist agenda: if Korean living standards were
robustly improving in the late Lee dynasty, this would lend a strong support for
the claim that Korea could have developed successfully on its own without being
colonized by Japan. Even the improvement in the initial decade of the colonial
period seems to favor the nationalist agenda considering the fact that the rst
decade “turned out primarily to represent a preparation for eective control of
the economy rather than actual introduction of any signicant change” and that
the positive trend soon reversed to a downward one as the colonial economic
system took root in earnest from the 1920s (Suh 1978, 8).
Perhaps in consideration of these problems and enigma, Kim and Park
(2011, 592) construed their finding of a sustained increase in Korean height
among the birth cohorts of 1880-1917 as having been caused by longer
“time spent growing up under Japanese rule” on the implicit assumption that
the colonial period saw a robust improvement in living standards. Such an
interpretation with nearly three decades of time-lag between birth year and
living standards is unsatisfactory, especially in the absence of a corresponding
increase in other indicators of well-being during the colonial period. As
discussed above, per capita caloric intake—the most important environmental
factor for human stature—never increased continuously at any stage of the
colonial period even in the most optimistic estimates, and other closely related
indicators such as real unskilled wage decreased in the 1920s and 30s. This
problem, together with the criticism by Huh (2011b, 2015a, 2015b) that the
Naksungdae economic historians’ estimates of an exceptionally rapid increase
in economic indicators (most importantly in rice production, which was the
most important industry at the time) during the 1910s massively overstates the
actual rate of improvement, raises the question of how there could have been,
or even whether there was, after all, a sustained increase in average height from
the birth cohorts of the 1880s to the late 1910s as was argued by Kim and Park
(2011). In the absence of clarifying future research, it seems apt to suspend
any strong judgments on the trajectory of Korean height in the last decades of
Korean Living Standards under Japanese Colonial Rule 169
the Lee dynasty and the first decade of the colonial period. The difficulty of
corroborating the hypothesized increase in height with relevant indicators of
biological living standards calls for attempts to improve the resolution of Korean
height in this early phase of Korean modernity.
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Korean Living Standards under Japanese Colonial Rule 173
Tay JEONG (jeong.tay@gmail.com) is a researcher with a broad-based interest
in historical sociology, sociology of knowledge, economic development, and
economic history. In addition to the present article, he is the author of a forthcoming
publication on the sociology and politics of historiographical conflicts in modern
Korea.
174 e Review of Korean Studies
Abstract
Stature has been a widely used measure in the recent debate on Korean
living standards under Japanese colonial rule. Past studies tended to focus on
presenting novel data or calculation methods and insuciently accounted for
the divergence of arguments in the literature. is paper attempts the task of
critically reviewing past research on Korean height during the colonial period
and suggesting a reasonable interpretation with regard to living standards. A
careful review supports the previously influential claim that average height
decreased from the birth cohorts of the 1920s until around 1950. Other
indicators of living standards closely related to the biological living standards of
the general populace such as unskilled wage, food consumption, and inequality
are consistent with height trends from the 1920s onwards, lending plausibility
to the traditionally prevalent thesis that Koreans experienced a decrease in
living standards as the colonial economic system took root in earnest. Recent
revisionist claims that the colonial period was a boon for Korean well-being
must be reconsidered.
Keywords: economic history, living standards, stature, anthropometrics, Korea,
Japanese colonialism
Submission: 2017. 6. 27. Referee/Revision: 2017. 10. 7. Confirm: 2017. 11. 21.
