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There are several articles that state that tall people make more money. According to wikipedia it is a known fact that some jobs require tall people, however I'm skeptical that on average this is indeed a fact. Do taller people earn more money on average?

Oddthinking
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isJustMe
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  • The assertions are not that jobs *require* tall people, it's that tall people are paid *more*. – Nicole Mar 21 '12 at 17:56
  • no, look at the wikipedia article it says "Some jobs do require or at least favor tall people, including some manual labor jobs, law enforcement, most professional sports, and fashion modeling." – isJustMe Mar 21 '12 at 18:41
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    Wut? This is a commonly used trope to teach false correlation in statistics class (the real correlation is that men are on average taller than women, and also earn more). Do these articles actually mean this seriously? – Konrad Rudolph Mar 21 '12 at 18:56
  • @Konrad Rudolph: you should write that as an answer – nico Mar 21 '12 at 21:31
  • Taller men get more respect than their shorter peers. – Sam I Am Mar 21 '12 at 23:54
  • @KonradRudolph they don't need to include women on the tests – ajax333221 Mar 22 '12 at 01:22
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    @ajax333221 And apparently the analysis explicitly corrected for this – which is good. But neither article mentioned this. – Konrad Rudolph Mar 22 '12 at 09:45
  • @Sam I Am: seriously? Although [Judge Selah Lively](http://www.bartleby.com/84/94.html) comes to mind... I know lots of example of short people with very high ranks. – nico Mar 25 '12 at 18:44

1 Answers1

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According to a meta-analysis of four studies (>8k total subjects) by Judge and Cable (2004):

height is positively related to income after controlling for sex, age, and weight.

A study by Persico et al 2004 provide further review and analysis of the height-income relationship, and point out that most presidents are well above the average height of their time (see fig below). Finally, a Scientific American article provides an interesting discussion of the relationship between height and other traits.

enter image description here.

Judge and Cable, 2004,The effect of physical height on workplace success and income: preliminary test of a theoretical model. J Appl Psychol. Jun;89(3):428-41. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.89.3.428

Persico, Nicola, Andrew Postlewaite, and Dan Silverman. 2004. The Effect of Adolescent Experience on Labor Market Outcomes: The Case of Height,” Journal of Political Economy, 112(5) (2004), 1019-1053 doi:10.1086/422566

David LeBauer
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    Silvio Berlusconi, Nicolas Sarkozy and Benito Mussolini are/were all quite short. Must be a right wing thing. – nico Mar 25 '12 at 18:47
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    The *"average height in population"*, is that overall population or just adult male population? – vartec Nov 09 '12 at 12:04
  • Looks like the mean (5'6) if for men, not the entire population (according to [wolframalpha](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=male+average+height)) – David LeBauer Nov 09 '12 at 14:01
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    The height of presidents is noise in this case - most of the leaders of the most powerful countries on Earth are average or below average height (France, Canada, Russia, Japan, India, etc.) I think for this answer to be scientific it would have to look at different types of jobs, even if looking exclusively at America. As it is phrased the question is as subjective as 'Do people of color earn less money' - it is useless without context. – Stumbler Dec 10 '16 at 17:58
  • @Stumbler Your comment only addresses the one paper on the heights of presidents. I agree that this would be insufficient evidence if it was the only evidence. However, I provided three references, only one of which uses heights of presidents as evidence. Did you have a chance to review the Judge & Cable 2004 and Scientific American articles? – David LeBauer Dec 12 '16 at 22:11