Monitoring the dynamics of social stratification: Statural variation among polish conscripts in 1976 and 1986

The effects of three factors in the social environment on variation in stature were evaluated in two large samples of 19-year-old Polish conscripts, one examined in 1976 (birth cohort 1957) another in 1986 (birth cohort 1967). The factors were: A) population size of the locality of the conscript's habitation, B) occupational-educational status (OES) of the father, and C) size of the conscript's sibship. In each cohort, stature decreased monotonically with decreasing population size, decreasing paternal OES and increasing sibship size, each factor exerting a significant influence on stature even after the influences of the other two were partialled-out by analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedures. However, the order of the strenght of the influences has changed from B > C > A in 1976 to C > B = A in 1986. The most notable change was the decline in the importance of factor B. The condition of being a peasant's son depressed stature less in 1986 than in 1976, but the stature-depressing effect of the condition of being a rural dweller, as well as that of coming from a large family, has not diminished. Overall, secular gains in stature among groups lowest on the statural and social scale in 1976 have been more intense than among those highest on these scales, which resulted in an attenuation of some social contrasts in stature from 1976 to 1986. © 1992 Wiley-Liss, Inc.