Family characteristics and offspring growth in various countries. II. Stature of offsprings in various families in Japan and Korea.

Abstract

The stature of 1219 offspring was examined in 578 families in Japan, and of 672 offspring in 265 families in Republic of Korea. Several traits of parents were investigated, on which using factor analysis four latent factors were extracted. In Japan they consisted of parent's age at child birth (F1), culture level and income (F2), family and apartment size (F3), and genetic factor (F4). The same factors were identified in Korea, but the first two in reverse order. The value of each factor was coded as one when below the median and as 2 when above the median. Using this code, 16 family types were distinguished ranging from 1111 to 2222. The stature of offspring was recalculated in age-independent T-scores. In Japan, family types "maximizing" the stature of offspring were 1122 for boys and 1222 for girls, whereas in Korea 1222 for both sexes, opposite were "minimizing". In the rich populations representing the civilization of the Far East, the factors promoting tall stature of offspring included the low culture-income factor and large family, thus the factors promoting short stature in poor Polish populations belonging to the Western civilization. It is not clear whether this could have been related to the economic status or to different civilization systems.