Height and living standards in North Korea, 1930s–1980s

Abstract

The adult stature of 6,512 North Korean refugees born from the 1930s to the 1980s was employed as an indicator of living standards in North Korea. The height of North Koreans born before the division of the Korean Peninsula exceeded that of their South Korean peers. All North Korean cohorts born thereafter were shorter than their South Korean counterparts. North Koreans did not experience a meaningful secular increase in height during 60 years of communism. A consistent and positive effect of about 1–2 cm for high educational status was found when height was regressed on birth decades, education, regional origin, and occupation.

Improvement in the biological standard of living in 20th century Korea: Evidence from age at menarche

“…Considering that they survived the North Korean regime and life-threatening emigration, this mean age at menarche was likely to be biased downward. Pak et al (2011) argued that the biological standards of living (measured by height) did not improve at all for the birth years 1940-1989, thus, this mean age at menarche may not much differ from those for earlier birth years, after adjusting for the downward bias. Furthermore, immediately after the colonization of Korea in 1910, a mean age at menarche of 16 years and 6 months was observed for women in northwestern Korea (cited from Lee, 1930, p. 33); the area was in the middle income range in Korea at the time.…”

Variations in the birth-season effects on height attainment in the two Koreas

“…Pak (2004) assessed the heights of 2384 adult North Korean refugees who entered South Korea in 1999Á2003. In a second survey, Pak et al (2008) refugees who defected to South Korea in the years up to 2007. The data used here were from the latter study, and comprised male adult heights by birth season.…”

“…In 2003, the Korean Agency for Technology and Science (ATS) conducted a nationwide anthropometric survey among South Koreans for the consumer industry (Choi and Schwekendiek 2008;Pak et al 2008). The ATS does not release the dataset to protect the privacy of the measured individuals; however, we obtained permission to analyse the data at the institute.…”

The inter-section of political history and health policy in Asia – The historical foundations for health policy analysis

“…In the post war second period of rehabilitation, the primary health care system was rapidly expanded with immunization services being introduced as early as the 1960s, and the network of health care delivery facilities rapidly expanded (Pak, 2011). A key turning point was reached in the period between 1989 and 1991, when the Soviet era drew to a close, GNP collapsed, and economic sanctions were strengthened and with "military first" politics prioritizing defence development over other forms of public policy.…”