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Height and reproductive success

How a Gambian population compares with the west

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Abstract

In Western societies, height is positively correlated with reproductive success (RS) for men but negatively correlated with RS for women. These relationships have been attributed to sexual selection: women prefer tall men, and men prefer short women. It is this success in the marriage market which leads to higher RS for tall men and short women. We have already shown that the relationship between height and RS for women is quite different in a non-Western context. In a subsistence farming community in rural Gambia, height is positively correlated with reproductive success for women, largely owing to the higher survival of the children of tall women. Here, the relationship between height and reproductive success is analyzed for men in the same community. For these Gambian men, there is no significant relationship between height and the number of children they produce, although tall men do contract more marriages than shorter men. We conclude that environmental context needs to be taken into account when analyzing human reproductive behavior.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics, Houghton St., WC2A 2AE, London, UK

    Rebecca Sear

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  1. Rebecca Sear
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Correspondence to Rebecca Sear.

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Rebecca Sear is a Lecturer in Population Studies at the London School of Economics. She has degrees in zoology and biological anthropology, and she received her Ph.D. from University College London in 2001.

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Sear, R. Height and reproductive success. Hum Nat 17, 405–418 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-006-1003-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-006-1003-1

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