Stature And Status: Height, Ability, And Labor Market Outcomes.pdf

It has long been recognized that taller adults hold jobs of higher status and, on average, earn more than other workers. Empirical research on height and success in the U.S. labor market dates back at least a century. Gowin (1915), for example, presents survey evidence documenting the difference in the distributions of heights of executives and of “average men.” Gowin also compares the heights of persons of differing status in the same profession, finding that bishops are taller on average than preachers in small towns, and sales managers are taller than salesmen, with similar results for lawyers, teachers, and railroad employees (p. 32).

Height continues to be highly correlated with labor market success in developed countries. Figures 1 and 2 provide evidence from the US and the UK that more highly-skilled jobs attract taller workers. On average, American men in white collar occupations are an inch taller than men in blue collar occupations. Among 30-year-old men in the UK, those working in professional and managerial occupations are six-tenths of an inch taller on average than those in manual occupations. Results for women are quite similar: in the UK, women working as professionals and managers are an inch taller than those in manual unskilled occupations.

Taller people also have higher average incomes and earnings. Table 1 presents results on the relationship between the logarithm of income and height for men and women observed in the US National Health Interview Survey (column 1), and between log earnings and height for men and women in a 1958 British birth cohort study (columns 2 and 3), and in a 1970 British cohort study (column 4). For both men and women, the relationship is striking: a one-inch increase in height is associated with a 2 to 2.5 percent increase in income or earnings. An increase in US men’s heights from the 25th to the 75th percentile of the height distribution — an increase of four inches — is associated with an increase in earnings of 10 percent on average.

A large number of hypotheses have been put forward to explain the association between height and earnings. In developing countries, the height premium in earnings is often attributed to the greater strength and better health that accompany height (Haddad and Bouis 1991, Steckel 1995, Strauss and Thomas 1998). In developed countries, researchers have emphasized factors such as self esteem (Freedman 1979, Lechelt 1975, Wilson 1968, Young and French 1996); social dominance (Hensley 1993, Klein et al. 1972) and discrimination (Loh 1993, Magnusson, Rasmussen, and Gyllensten. 2006). In a recent paper, Persico, Postlewaite and Silverman (2004) suggest that boys who are taller during adolescence are more likely to participate in social activities that build productive human capital. They postulate that adolescent experiences are responsible for the higher earnings observed for taller men in adulthood, so that those who are short as teenagers have lower earnings, even if their heights “catch up” by adulthood.

In this paper, we offer a simpler explanation: On average, taller people earn more because they are smarter. As early as age 3 — before schooling has had a chance to play a role — and throughout childhood, taller children perform significantly better on cognitive tests. The correlation between height in childhood and adulthood is approximately 0.7 for both men and women, so that tall children are much more likely to become tall adults. As adults, taller individuals are more likely to select into higher paying occupations that require more advanced verbal and numerical skills and greater intelligence, for which they earn handsome returns.

We first show how the heights of children and adults are related to the childhood environment, and make the case that common factors influence both height and cognitive ability. We present evidence from three data sets — two from Britain and one from the US — that taller children score better on a variety of cognitive tests administered at different ages. We then examine how heights are related to earnings and occupational choice. We find that the height premium in adult earnings can be explained by childhood scores on cognitive tests. Furthermore, we show that taller adults select into occupations that have higher cognitive skill requirements and lower physical skill demands.