Social class-specific secular trends in height among 19-year old Polish men: 6th national surveys from 1965 till 2010

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2019.100832Get rights and content

Highlights

  • 45 years of social inequalities in Poland.

  • Six nationwide surveys of Polish 19-year-old men.

  • 10 % random national sample representing all social strata and all regions of Poland.

  • Social distances in body height decreased but the social gradient was constant.

  • Sons of farmers the main beneficiaries of socio-political changes in Poland.

Abstract

The results presented in this study concern the assessment of the secular trend of body height in 10 % a random national sample (N = 134,224) representing all regions of Poland in 8 homogeneous social groups over 45 years in Poland (1965–2010). Very significant political, social and economic changes in Poland occurred in the period studied. The political revolution that began in Poland at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s dramatically changed the picture of social inequalities in the country. It rapidly transformed (in different directions and to a different degree) the economic situation, working conditions, lifestyles and the prestige of particular social classes and professional groups. A positive secular trend was observed in 19-year-old participants in the period analysed in all homogeneous socio-professional groups, however, with different intensity in each group. The highest body height increases in 1965-2010 were observed in the sons of farmers with post-primary father’s education (7.77 cm). The lowest were observed among the sons of professionals, only 5.45 cm. Although social distances between extreme socio-economic groups significantly decreased (from 4.89 cm in 1965 to 2.76 cm in 2010), social gradients of body height, despite the improvement in the standards of living of the entire society remained exceptionally stable and unchanged for nearly half a century.

Introduction

Similar to other countries, there were growing social differences in Poland of the second half of the 20th century, as evidenced by the growing value of the Gini coefficient calculated in relation to income, which is a measure of social inequality (SP, 2015; Statistics Poland (SP, 2019; WBW, 2015). The biological effects of social stratification are recorded by analysis of the social differences in some indices of population well-being, such as the rate of growth and maturation of children and adolescents (Bielicki et al., 1986, 2003, 2005; Charzewski et al., 2003; Zong et al., 2015), health status and morbidity in adults (Bray et al., 2018; Jankowska et al., 2008; Kołodziej, 1998; Lipowicz, 2007; Łopuszańska-Dawid, 2018; Rogucka and Bielicki, 1999; Rogucka et al., 2000; Szklarska and Rogucka, 2001), and mortality rates, especially concerning premature deaths (Kołodziej et al., 2007, 2008; Rogucka, 1995). Social differences in health status and mortality rates have also been documented in a number of studies of other populations (Bray et al., 2018; Kaplan and Keil, 1993; Leinsalu et al., 2003; Regidor et al., 2016; Winkleby et al., 1992).

The history of changes in social structure, especially social stratification in Poland after the Second World War, can be divided into several stages. The first stage, started after the end of the war, was mainly marked by collectivization of rural areas, nationalization of industry and increased industrialization of the country. This involved the elimination of private ownership of means of production so that the upper classes (landowners and owners of means of production) disappeared. The elimination of the free market caused almost the disappearance of the middle class, who earned their living from trade and craft. Thus, the social structure in Poland was “flattened” through reducing society to two social classes (farmers and workers), which together constituted 90 % of the population. The changes connected with the transformation of the political system also affected the intelligentsia status class. For political reasons, pre-war representatives of this class were pushed to the margins of society, and ousted by people earning their status by social advancement, often deserved by their contribution to the introduction of the socialist system. Managerial positions were filled without taking into account the level of education or experience, but only the membership of the ruling party. A characteristic feature of the social structure of the Polish People's Republic was the emergence of a new social stratum connected with the exercise of power, the so-called party-state apparatus. The entire legislative, executive and judicial power was concentrated in the hands of this privileged group (Gomułka, 2016; Roszkowski, 2010).

The second stage, observed in the years 1960–1970, was a period of "low stabilization", the pace of changes began to slow down compared to previous years, but it did not stop completely yet. Two significant changes took place: for the first time, the population of cities in Poland was higher than that of rural areas, whereas the number of people employed in industry exceeded the number of those employed in agriculture. It can be observed that industrial society was formed in Poland at that time. The composition of occupational groups has also changed. More and more well-educated workers found employment in the industry that required professionals. The living conditions in rural areas improved, e.g. electrification of villages was carried out. In 1970–1980, the role of the working class increased, and its social power was recognised. Until 1976, the standard of living in the Polish People's Republic improved, especially in the case of large industry workers, such as miners and metallurgists, who received special privileges (e.g. easier access to luxury goods), unavailable to other workers. Through propaganda and income differentiation (workers' salaries were often much higher than those earned by white-collar workers), the authorities tried to raise the social prestige of workers and reduce the social position of intelligentsia groups. The economic crisis of the second half of the 1970s led to a wave of social unrest and public protests in 1980. Almost 60 % of all working Poles, who were representatives of various occupational groups, joined Solidarity, the newly formed trade union. This indicated a huge mobilization of society to achieve the common objectives of the different social strata. The years 1981–1989 were the period from the introduction of martial law to the Polish Round Table Agreement. The economic stagnation, which had been experienced for some time, and great social discontent led to a crisis which ended in the collapse of the Polish People's Republic (Oyrzanowski and Paleczny-Zapp, 1993).

The political transformation, which began in 1989, suddenly changed the image of social stratification and inequality of the Polish population. The economic situation, working conditions, lifestyles and the prestige of some social classes and professional groups was changing (in different directions and to a different degree). Some previously large social classes almost ceased to exist or had significantly decreased in numbers, e.g. agricultural workers, workers in state-owned farms, smallholders and large industry workers (Kłos, 1998). At the same time, new groups appeared, previously non-existent or of marginal importance – private owners: the class of small and medium-sized private enterprises, the class of hired employees employed in the private sector, the class of highly specialized managers employed by large corporations. The rise of Polish inequality in the early 1990s was induced both by the rise of top labour and capital incomes. Bukowski and Novokmet (2019) attributes this to labour market liberalisation and privatisation. In the first period of transformation, there was a rapid increase in the number of business owners and private entrepreneurs. It is estimated that the number of business owners increased several times, from 2 % to 9 % (Domański, 2003). The still ongoing processes of social transformation were accompanied by intensified human migration. Closed workplaces forced people to look for jobs in other regions of the country. The consequence of these transformations was a dramatic increase in social inequalities observed in Poland. The emergence of a class of very wealthy people was accompanied by an increasing number of people living close to the subsistence level. A new large social group of the unemployed also emerged. These processes affected different social groups in different ways.

In Poland, an excellent measure of the position on the social scale is the level of education. Throughout the transformation period, people with primary and vocational levels of education were much more likely to lose their jobs and remained unemployed longer than those with a better education. Tertiary education was a factor that significantly reduced the risk of losing jobs, both at the beginning of the transformation period and at its later stages. It is also remarkable that generally there is still a high correlation between the level of education and the type of work performed in Poland (r = 0.92; Bielicki et al., 1997).

Currently, the vast majority of body height studies in the entire population show differences in living standards in different countries or within countries over time. There are very few studies showing differences in body height and standards of subgroups within countries, and those available concern selected and often small groups (Deaton, 2008; Margo and Steckel, 1982; Moradi and Baten, 2005).

The level of social gradients of biological traits seems to be highly determined by the inequalities in the socio-economic environment during early childhood. Socio-economic factors in childhood can influence body height through their effect on living conditions such as poor housing, malnutrition or inadequate access to healthcare. Some authors have found that the most important non-genetic factor affecting adult body height is childhood nutrition, energy use and disease, both of these being socially patterned (Cavelaars et al., 2000; Silventoinen, 2003; Silventoinen et al., 2001). The significance of economic inequalities in the first stages of ontogenesis in shaping body height is confirmed by studies of 12,830 children with The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) born in the early 1990s (Galobardes et al., 2012). The results indicate that mothers with higher levels of education gave birth to longer boys and girls. Although the height differences were small, they were maintained throughout childhood. Children whose mothers had the highest levels of education compared to those who had at most a primary level of education were 0.39 cm longer at birth (95%CI:0.30 to 0.48). These differences persisted, and at 11.5 years of age, the height difference was 1.4 cm (95%CI:1.07 to 1.74). Similarly, in Belarus, socioeconomic differences in offspring growth commenced in the prenatal period and generate up to approximately 2 cm difference in height at the age of 7 years (Patel et al., 2014). Factors such as improved infant feeding (Silventoinen et al., 2001), reductions in maternal smoking (Leary et al., 2006; Rona et al., 1985) and overcrowding (Silventoinen et al., 2001) or other environmental features may affect children's stature. Furthermore, Arcaleni (2012), who studied secular trends in body height of Italian conscripts born between 1854 and 1980, demonstrated that regional differences in adult body height were due to inequalities in the socio-economic environment during early childhood. Therefore, due to the sensitivity of adult height to childhood living conditions, height started to be used as a measure of the “biological standard of living’’. On the other hand, some studies indicate that migration, horizontal or vertical, internal or international may be important in the study of secular trends and social gradients, especially in body height (Escamilla-Guerrero and Lopez-Alonso, 2019; Jankowska et al., 2008; Kołodziej et al., 2001; Spitzer and Zimran, 2018; Szklarska et al., 2008).

Identification of group-specific trends offers the opportunity for human biologists to monitor the evolution of social stratification and the dynamics of social stratification over time, and consequently to monitor the effects of this stratification on the biological condition of populations and social strata. Therefore, this paper aims to answer the following questions: (1) Did the intensity of intergenerational trends in individual social strata and occupational groups change? (2) Did (and to what extent) physical development distances (and thus, by default, differences in biological standards of living) between specific social groups change? (3) Was there a tendency to flatten or rather sharpen certain social contrasts?

Section snippets

Data and methods

The data from six nationwide surveys of Polish 19-year-old men from cohorts of conscripts from 1965, 1976, 1986, 1995, 2001 and 2010 (successive birth cohorts: 1946, 1957, 1967, 1976, 1982 and 1990/91) were used. Each survey was carried out under auspices of Ministry of National Defence in February and May. Reporting for registration and examination at the specified dates was compulsory for all 19-year-old males. Subjects were measured and interviewed during a medical examination at district

Results

Table 3 presents means, standard deviations (SD) and mean body height increments per decade in 19-year-old men in eight social groups within five analysed decades. Furthermore, this table contains the results of the analysis of body height variance (F; p) between cohorts in individual social groups (rows) and absolute social differences in mean body height within individual cohorts (columns). All F-test values were statistically highly significant at the level of p < 0.001.

In the period from

Discussion

There were very significant changes in all spheres of life in Poland in the period analysed in this study, and in particular in the period of political transformation. The political revolution that began in Poland at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s dramatically changed the picture of social inequalities in the country. It rapidly transformed (in different directions and to a different degree) the economic situation, working conditions, lifestyles and the prestige of particular social classes

Conclusion

In conclusion, the living conditions in Poland of the whole society improved with the economic development over 45 years, but the probably distribution of income and differences in biological standards of living between the social strata kept the same gradient. Perhaps the improvement in the biological standards of living of higher socio-economic groups could have been balanced by other lifestyle disadvantages, such as unbalanced diet, smoking, alcohol abuse or inappropriate ways of coping with

Ethics

The work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. The manuscript is in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

Declaration of Competing Interest

None.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Science Centre (NCN) Poland, grant number: NN 303 456 338.

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