the families who worked the lands owned by the mill owners. Discipline in the
factory was severe and even extended to the conduct of personal lives and
living arrangements (Kohli, 2004).
Height has been used as a long-term objective summative measure of devel-
opment. Height is influenced by an individual’s lifetime intake of nutrition and
exposure to disease. Height is also influenced in part by genetics (tall parents
are more likely to have tall children), so it is not a perfect measure. The height
record of colonial armies is a little-used source providing excellent coverage
across a wide population and over time. The sample of military recruits was
broadly representative during the two world wars which expanded military
recruitment such that in Kenya about 10 per cent of adult men (20 per cent of
the wage labour force) were serving in the military. In Ghana recruitment was
compulsory, with quotas for each district, and physical requirements were
lowered. In Ghana the cohort of recruits born between 1905 and 1920 were
taller than the cohort of recruits born between 1880 and 1893 by an average of
2cm, implying a considerable improvement in the quality of life. A major
setback seems to have occurred between 1930 and 1950, after which average
height gains of 0.4cm per decade resumed. In Kenya mean heights stagnated
for birth cohorts between 1880 and 1920 then improved continuously for
cohorts born from the 1920s to the 1980s, This evidence suggests that Ghana
and Kenya experienced significant improvements in nutrition and health
during colonial rule. At the beginning of the twentieth century cocoa emerged
as a successful cash crop and brought an economic boom to Ghana’s forest
region. Other contributory factors were political stability and domestic peace,
the ending of the slave trade and labour migration to the booming forest region
as the British extended their rule over the inland kingdom of Ashanti and the
northern Savannah after 1896 (Moradi,2008). In industrialized countries mean
heights grew around 1cm per decade. Other developing countries rarely
achieved such rates. In India, for example, heights stagnated at very low levels.
The critique that education was neglected or distorted by colonialism is
reflected in a more recent concern. This is the question of the Brain Drain.
Developed countries offer various incentives for skilled/educated nationals
from abroad (often developing countries) to migrate. The H1B Visa
Programme in the US targets individuals working in sectors such as IT,
finance, engineering, health care, and telecoms. It offers the opportunity to live
and work in the US and eventually apply for a Green Card (permanent resi-
dence). In the early 2000s Denmark offered expatriates a special 25 per cent
income tax instead of the usual rates between 39 per cent and 59 per cent. After
2003 South Korea offered expatriates tax-free allowances of up to 40 per cent
of salary to cover the cost of living, housing, home leave and education. Not
surprisingly, given enormous differences in living standards, such incentive
programmes have motivated an enormous shift of skilled labour from develop-
ing to developed countries. (Admittedly unreliable) data from the OECD
shows that in 2000 the emigration rate of college graduates was 83.4 per cent
in Haiti, 49.2 per cent in Sierra Leone, 44.7 per cent in Ghana, 38.5 per cent in
Colonialism 203