Are social-class differences in stature partly genetic? A hypothesis revisited.

Twenty-three different, socially homogenous groups of 19-year-old males were selected from a total sample of 57,000 Polish conscripts examined in 1986 and in 1995. Each group consisted of age-mates equated for six criteria of social background: 1) maternal and 2) paternal education, 3) maternal and 4) paternal occupational status, 5) number of children in the family, and 6) degree of urbanization of the subject's locality of residence. Within every one of the 23 groups, subjects who at the age of 19 years were secondary-school or college students, were taller than socially similar peers, who by that age had never moved beyond the level of basic vocational school. Thus, a significant association exists between an individual's potential for upward social mobility and tallness. Such associations must be taken into account when considering the origin and nature of the commonly observed taller stature of the upper over the lower social strata in present-day industrial societies. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 12:97-101, 2000. Copyright 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.