Substack cometh, and lo it is good. (Pricing)

Where are brown people short?

In the comments to my post, Why brown people are midgets, a reader pointed me to this paper, which tabulates and analyzes some data from the 1960s for males. There isn’t anything too surprising in the data set; Punjabis are tall compared to non-Punjabis, higher castes are taller than lower castes. There is a lot of unaccounted for variation. This was before Indian Shining, and the Green Revolution probably hadn’t sunk in yet (I wouldn’t be surprised if the between-state differences increased, while the between-caste differences decreased, in the past 40 years). So appropriate caveats. The one surprising thing is that being a Muslim was a variable that predicted more height! This is correcting for regional distribution. The reason it’s surprising is that Muslims are genetically no different from non-Muslims (e.g., in Uttar Pradesh the highest proportion of recent West Asian ancestry is 5% across the whole population) and tend to socially disadvantaged in India (i.e., they are a Backward Class). The only explanation I have is that Muslims are less likely to be vegetarian or have dietary taboos which constrain their nutritional choices. Tables below the fold….

* p-value at 0.05
** p-value at 0.01

Table 4 – Anthnropometric Survey of North India: Male Height Least Squares Regression
Independent variables  Regression coefficient t ratio
Intercept 63.38983.2**
Age group: 20-400.376.6**
 41-500.193.1**
 51-60-0060.8
 Age factor chi-square  125.6**
    
Social group: High caste 1.2130.2**
 Superior sudras 0.9320.4**
 Inferior sudras 0.244.8**
 Tribals0.101.9
 Muslims1.0520.1**
 Others0.435.9**
 Social group factor chi-square  1434.7**
    
State:Assam-0.528.2**
 Bihar-0.419.0**
 Gujarat0.112.1*
 Haryana1.5917.7**
 Himachal Pradesh -0.415.5**
 Jammu and Kashmir 0.000.0
 Orissa-0.469.6**
 Punjab1.5522.8**
 Uttar Pradesh 0.6917.1**
 State factor chi-square  1793.2**
    
R20.107  
s2.37  
Table 5 – Anthropometric Survey of South India: Male Height Least Squares Regression
Independent variables  Regression coefficient t ratio
Intercept 63.50122.8**
    
Age group: 20-400.180.4
 41-500.120.2
 51-600.190.3
   1.53
Social group: High caste 0.879.6**
 Superior Sudras 1.0816.6**
 Inferior sudras 0.487.9**
 Muslims0.8810.7**
 Others0.081.2
 Social group factor chi-square  394.7**
    
State:Andhra Pradesh 0.132.1**
 Karnataka0.477.2**
 Tamil Nadu 0.020.3
 State factor chi-square  79.2**
    
R20.032  
s2.40  
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