Global Variance in Female Population Height: The Influence of Education, Income, Human Development, Life Expectancy, Mortality and Gender Inequality in 96 Nations

Abstract

Human height is a heritable trait that is known to be influenced by environmental factors and general standard of living. Individual and population stature is correlated with health, education and economic achievement. Strong sexual selection pressures for stature have been observed in multiple diverse populations, however; there is significant global variance in gender equality and prohibitions on female mate selection. This paper explores the contribution of general standard of living and gender inequality to the variance in global female population heights. Female population heights of 96 nations were culled from previously published sources and public access databases. Factor analysis with United Nations international data on education rates, life expectancy, incomes, maternal and childhood mortality rates, ratios of gender participation in education and politics, the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Gender Inequality Index (GII) was run. Results indicate that population heights vary more closely with gender inequality than with population health, income or education.

Gender inequality and sexual height dimorphism in Chile

“…It is known that better education, especially for women, has an impact on them and their offspring (Osmani & Sen, 2003;Maurer, 2010;Enjezab et al, 2015;Blackstone, 2017), thus affecting biological factors such as height through a 'health dynasty' transmitted from one generation to another (Silventoinen, 2003;Oxley, 2016). The findings of the current study also show a similar correlation pattern between education and female height obtained by previous studies (Mark, 2014;Koepke et al, 2018), thus indicating that female average height is increasing and sexual height dimorphism is decreasing.…”

“…The infant mortality rate showed similar patterns, as it was positively correlated with GII and some of its components, such as the maternal mortality rate, adolescent birth rate and DIFPSE and DIFLFP, which also showed positive correlations with the birth rate and global fertility rate. The previously stated patterns could suggest a closer relationship between gender equality and child health indicators in Chile with GDPc, but not with height, which has been observed in other studies (Silventoinen, 2003;Bozzoli et al, 2007;Mark, 2014).…”

“…Although the GII was not correlated with sexual height dimorphism, all the other variables were correlated in the expected way; therefore, the findings suggest that given the information available, gender equality could provide an explanation for the reduction in sexual height dimorphism observed in the study samples. In the case of Mark (2014), regarding the relationships between female height variance and other general-and gender-specific indicators, after factor analysis, it was found that the variance in height was best defined by loading for gender inequality.…”

“…Since information was not available for all variables to calculate the GII, parts of the GII, together with similar available indicators such as global fertility rates (GFR) and the birth rate (BR), were also used. This choice was made because reproductive health is one of the main dimensions that make up the GII, since it can somehow account for women's control over their bodies; it has been shown that in highly patriarchal societies women have more children due to a lack of empowerment (Mark, 2014;Enjezab et al, 2015) and the use of reproductive health services by women is a function of the availability of facilities and gendered inequalities that influence women's access to social and economic resources, freedom of movement and decision-making power in matters that are significant to their well-being (Banda et al, 2017). Overall welfare indicators were IMR and GDPc, which have also been used to assess societies' progress and have been associated with height variations (Bozzoli et al, 2007;Borrescio-Higa et al, 2019).…”

Height, Socioeconomic and Subjective Well-Being Factors among U.S. Women, Ages 49–79

“…The body of literature on height is global, vast and increasing [4] . Cited here are a selected number of papers that relate to height and a broad range of factors including: genetics, early life development, nutrition, biology, socioeconomic factors [5] – [9] , [14] – [24] , [26] – [29] ; medical conditions include infection [6] , coronary heart diseases [5] , cardiorespiratory disease and cancer mortality [9] , dementia [28] ; economic factors are income [7] , [10] , [15] , wages [16] , [21] , wealth [25] ; education [8] , [10] ; cognitive skills [7] , [13] ; occupation/workplace, [11] , [12] , [15] , [20] , [21] , [29] ; psychological factors—success [1] , [12] ,choices [13] ; for women, reproduction [22] marriage [24] , gender inequality [18] ; comparisons at the country level [7] , [8] , [18] , [25] . Height, income and education are the primary variables analyzed from The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index daily poll of the US population [10] .…”