The biological standard of living in the two Koreas

Pak, Sunyoung

doi:10.1016/j.ehb.2004.09.001

Cited by 63 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…The data used here were from the latter study, and comprised male adult heights by birth season. As discussed in Pak (2004), these individuals are not statistically representative of the nation, as 65% came from the northern Hamgyong province, located next China's Jilin province. Figure 4 shows that the data for these adult North Koreans, raised under pre-famine conditions, follow the global pattern in which height is highest in spring-born people and lower in autumn-born people.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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

Schwekendiek

Pak

Kim

2009

Annals of Human Biology

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…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.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Schwekendiek

Pak

Kim

2009

Annals of Human Biology

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“…Korea provides one example. Pak 56 shows that while South and North Koreans born during the 1940s were of similar height, the adult heights of North Koreans in subsequent generations have stagnated while the heights of South Koreans have increased by 6 cm -the same gap as that between black and white men in South Africa at the start of the 20th century. Examples of different ethnic groups converging in heights as socio-economic conditions improve comes from the experience of Māori and white (Pākehā) New Zealanders since World War II.…”

Section: (P233)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Black living standards in South Africa before democracy: New evidence from height

Mpeta¹,

Fourie²,

Inwood³

2018

S. Afr. J. Sci.

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Very little income or wage data were systematically recorded about the living standards of South Africa's black majority during much of the 20th century. We used four data sets to provide an alternative measure of living standards -namely stature -to document, for the first time, living standards of black South Africans over the course of the 20th century. We found evidence to suggest that living standards in the first three decades of the century were particularly poor, perhaps because of the increasingly repressive labour policies in urban areas and famine and land expropriation that weighed especially heavily on the Basotho. The decade following South Africa's departure from the gold standard, a higher international gold price and the demand for manufactured goods from South Africa as a consequence of World War II seem to have benefitted both black and white South Africans. The data also allowed us to disaggregate by ethnicity within the black population group, revealing levels of inequality within race groups that have been neglected in the literature. Finally, we compared black and white living standards, and revealed the large and widening levels of inequality that characterised 20th-century South Africa. Significance:• We provide the first long-run estimates of black living standards in South Africa and evidence of intergroup differences in the effects of 20th-century events and policies.

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“…Indeed, human biological measurements such as height and weight are very sensitive to underlying living conditions. As social, economic and epidemiological stresses are known to result in stunting of growth and lead to underweight status, anthropometric measurements capture quite well the overall standard of living as well as the socioeconomic performance of a particular Previous studies on biosocial differences between the two Koreas have been conducted along this line, by reporting height and weight gaps as manifestations of diverging socioeconomic development (Pak, 2004(Pak, , 2012Pak, 2010;Pak et al, 2011). As Korea has been an ethnically homogenous nation for centuries, genetic factors are not likely to have caused these anthropometric differences, which were consistently found across the aforementioned studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biosocial Comparison of Mid-Upper Arm Circumference in the Two Koreas

Schwekendiek

2013

J. Biosoc. Sci.

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Anthropometric differences between the two Koreas are of considerable public and scientific interest given the unique socio-political status of North Korea and the fact that the nations share the same genetic ancestry. This study provides new biosocial evidence on these differences by analysing mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) as a human welfare indicator. This is the first study to compare the nutritional status of adults surveyed inside North Korea with South Koreans. The MUAC measurements of 2793 North Korean women obtained through a household survey conducted in 2002 were compared with those of 1428 South Korean women surveyed around 2003. Comparative analysis was conducted by plotting centiles and calculating mean differences in MUAC by age. This paper finds that the MUAC of the South Koreans was on average 2.8 cm greater than that of their North Korean peers, with MUAC gaps ranging from 1.6 cm to 3.9 cm and becoming more pronounced with age. This research confirms previous studies on height and weight in the two Germanies and in the two Koreas that have shown that biosocial performance is worse in socialist economies as compared with free-market regimes.

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The biological standard of living in the two Koreas

Cited by 63 publications

References 5 publications

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

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

Black living standards in South Africa before democracy: New evidence from height

Biosocial Comparison of Mid-Upper Arm Circumference in the Two Koreas

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