We examine the influence of socio-environmental (and birth cohort specific) effects on both adult height and gender dimorphism (height gap). Our data set is from contemporary Spain, a country governed by an authoritarian regime for about 40 years. Both OLS and quantile regression approaches are used to examine these patterns. Furthermore, we then draw upon a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition approach to explain the influence of socio-political environment in explaining gender dimorphism.