Secular trends in stature in Poland: national and social class-specific

Abstract

Mean statures of Polish 19-year-old males, as estimated from large national random samples of conscripts examined at 10-year intervals, increased from 170.5cm in 1965 to 176.9cm in 1995. The average statural gain of 2.1cm per decade is rather high compared to other European countries, although not exceptionally so. In addition, secular trends were analysed separately for each of seven selected social groups, each group comprising subjects equated for three social criteria. The rank-order of the seven groups on the statural scale has remained identical throughout the period considered, although the group specific trends have not been strictly parallel. During the period 1965-1986 there has been a tendency for the groups lowest on the social and statural scale to diminish their statural distance from the social elite, the sons of the large-city intelligentsia, a social group consistently the tallest of all the seven groups considered. However, that tendency for the social gaps to narrow came to a halt during the last, 1986-1995, decade. The present time-lag, in stature, of the group lowest on the social scale, the peasants, behind the social elite amounts to almost 30 years. These findings assume special significance in view of: (1) the high ethnic homogeneity of the population of Poland; (2) the absence in that population of any social class differences in gene frequencies; and (3) certain peculiarities of Poland's post-war economic and political history.