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Social class and human twinning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Birgitte Bønnelykke
Birgitte Bønnelykke
Affiliation:
Cytogenetics Laboratory, Aarhus Psychiatric Hospital, Denmark
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Summary

In a comparative study to examine the effect of social factors on human twinning, data on sociodemographic and other factors were collected from parents of all twins born alive in Denmark in 1984 or 1985 and from a random sample of parents of singleton infants born in the same years. A postal questionnaire was used. The twins were classified as monozygotic (MZ) or dizygotic (DZ) twins by the similarity method. A trend was found in DZ-twinning, with significantly fewer DZ-twins born in the lower social classes, but not in MZ-twinning. All results were controlled for maternal age and parity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , July 1990 , pp. 381 - 386
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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