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We’ve blogged about the relationship between height and pay before, as well as height and electability, but I’ve just come across a four-year-old New Yorker article on height and how it’s changing around the world. In The Height Gap, reporter Burkhard Bilger explains anthropometric history — the study of the history of human height, and what factors contribute to it. From Bilger’s article:
Tall men, a series of studies has shown, benefit from a significant bias. They get married sooner, get promoted quicker, and earn higher wages. According to one recent study, the average six-foot worker earns a hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars more, over a thirty-year period, than his five-foot-five-inch counterpart—about eight hundred dollars more per inch per year. Short men are unlucky in politics (only five of forty-three Presidents have been shorter than average) and unluckier in love. A survey of some six thousand adolescents in the nineteen-sixties showed that the tallest boys were the first to get dates. The only ones more successful were those who got to choose their own clothes.
Like many biases, this one has a certain basis in fact. Over the past thirty years, a new breed of “anthropometric historians” has tracked how populations around the world have changed in stature. Height, they’ve concluded, is a kind of biological shorthand: a composite code for all the factors that make up a society’s well-being. Height variations within a population are largely genetic, but height variations between populations are mostly environmental, anthropometric history suggests. If Joe is taller than Jack, it’s probably because his parents are taller. But if the average Norwegian is taller than the average Nigerian it’s because Norwegians live healthier lives. That’s why the United Nations now uses height to monitor nutrition in developing countries. In our height lies the tale of our birth and upbringing, of our social class, daily diet, and health-care coverage. In our height lies our history.
Read the rest for interesting trivia on differences in height across the world and through human history. See also: more on anthropometric history from Wikipedia.
(Via Kottke.org.)
Obama: 6′ 1½”
McCain: 5′ 9″
Looks good to me!
posted by David on 6-5-2008 at 12:50 pm
So does the fact that I’m attracted to tall men (even though I’m on the short side) mean I’m a gold digger?
Haha, my captcha is “immortal ants.” I think I’ll name my band that . . . if I had a band.
posted by nutmeag on 6-5-2008 at 1:41 pm
The Starbucks cup sizes in the photo are out of order. From smallest to largest it should be Tall, Grande, Venti.
posted by Ira on 6-5-2008 at 1:55 pm
So, basically they’re saying that I’m only 4′10″ because we were poor and I was malnourished? And all the very short women in my family suffered the same? Meh. I liked it better when I just blamed it on my genes.
posted by caitlen315 on 6-5-2008 at 2:03 pm
Ira - oops. Sheesh, my Starbucks joke wasn’t even right! Fixing now….
posted by Chris Higgins on 6-5-2008 at 2:52 pm
Has anyone done a study on very tall women? As a 6′ tall woman, I generally find myself on the negative end of height-related benefits. People (especially guys) don’t quite know what to do with me.
posted by Lindsey on 6-5-2008 at 3:14 pm
I had very good nourishment as a child and teenager (lots of fresh veggies and milk, never any fast food), and I’m still only 5′1′’. My best friend, who’s parents are exactly the same height as my parents, is 8 inches taller than me. What’s up with that?
posted by gibson8or on 6-5-2008 at 5:40 pm
I’ve got to say, my 6′3″ stature has benefited me quite a bit. We’ll have to see how I fair in the real world once I get through school, though.
posted by Jake Le Master on 6-5-2008 at 6:31 pm
Reading the article, I think the notion about nutrition and height is that it’s an average across the population. You’re always going to have short people and tall people, but the theory is that if everybody gets better nutrition, the genetically tall-inclined can grow to their full ultra-tall potential, thus making the average taller. (I assume the same is true of the short — that you’d be even shorter than if you had poor nutrition, but I’m no geneticist. I am, however, of very average height.)
posted by Chris Higgins on 6-5-2008 at 8:37 pm
It’s interesting that the article doesn’t say anything about the effect of height on women, too. As both a short woman (4′9′ish), and the daughter of a short woman (she’s about 4′6″), I’ve noticed a staggering difference in the way women of lesser heights are regarded. Aside from being permanently relegated to the ‘cute’ label, a lot of employers regard short women as being less capable of the duties required of their job, and therefore seem less hireable.
This is only from my personal experiences, of course. If anyone else would like to pitch in on this idea, I’d like to hear other peoples’ views on this.
p.s. I’m not short because I’m malnourished, I’m short because I’m Asian :)
posted by heather on 6-5-2008 at 8:41 pm
I’m 5′3, my sisters 5′8 and 5′10, and poor them - all the tall guys wanted me. In high school only one of my boyfriends was short to average height, the rest were 6′1-6′3. I had one friend who was 6′6, and his girlfriend was 4′10!
Tall guys like the short ladies.
But yes, we are labeled “cute” too often and treated like we’re younger.
posted by Leah on 6-5-2008 at 10:40 pm
As the mother of a 6′ 7″ 16 year old, I am glad to read this. He has had to put up with so much negative bias by being so tall his whole life; people expecting him to act older and be more mature–when he was really just a kid. He also had to deal with Napoleon-complex teachers who were miffed that he was taller than they were when he was just in 4th and 5th grades.
Wish there had been a bit about tall women–I think it works against us. I am 5′ 11″ and am treated VERY differently than my friends who are 5′ 6″ and shorter.
posted by Mama Bear on 6-6-2008 at 11:08 am
If a boy isn’t old enough to choose his own clothing, he isn’t old enough to date.
And Starbucks? The smallest cup is called “Tall”? What language is that?
posted by Miss Cellania on 6-6-2008 at 4:44 pm
I second comment #3: it’s Tall Grande Venti. Call me a Starbucks snob (a Bucky?) but it almosts makes the post unreadable, the credibility being gone.
posted by Randy MacDonald on 6-7-2008 at 10:04 am