The Effect of Height in Employment


"Taller workers earn on average higher salaries. Recent research has proposed cognitive abilities and social skills as explanations for the height-wage premium... In this paper, we provide some evidence in favor of the discrimination hypothesis. Using a cross section of 13 countries, we show that there is a consistent height-wage premium across Europe and that it is largely due to occupational sorting. We show that height has a significant effect for the occupational sorting of employed workers but not for the self-employed. We interpret this result as evidence of employer discrimination in favor of taller workers. Our results are consistent with the theoretical predictions of recent models on statistical discrimination and employer learning." - Source
I've seen people claim tall workers earn more due to superior intellect, confidence, or ambition. I find it more likely that height matters for employed workers but not the self-employed, simply because the latter is exempt from being gauged on appearance by an employer (whether consciously or not). That is what we do, after all — assess people based on stature:


According to Malcolm Gladwell, 58% of CEOs are at least 6 feet tall. 30% are 6'2" or taller, even though only 3.9% of men are in this height range. The supposed correlation coefficient between height and IQ is about 0.2 (which is considered a weak correlation). Could this cause over half of CEOs to be tall, or the taller candidate winning 17 out of 21 times according to the video above? The only studies that show a stronger correlation between height and IQ use children instead of adults as test subjects, but there's a reason why IQ tests are scaled for age. Considering how people get taller as they get older, using height as a factor in a study involving children is basically like forgetting to take age into account. I also wonder how often people in today's politically correct climate bring up the correlation between race and IQ, which has a coefficient of above 0.6. Yet 6.8% of CEOs are black, while only 2% are people under 5'6" (stat once again from Malcolm Gladwell).

This study outright controlled for IQ and found the following:
"However, controlling for intelligence did not affect the relationship of height with earnings... Thus, contrary to the speculation of some researchers, it does not appear that the advantages of height are due to a possible link between height and intelligence."
Another pair of experts found similar results:
"Even allowing for such factors as I.Q., educational level, and marital status, Boxer and Benham concluded that those 6' and over could still count on making around 8 percent more money annually than those below 5'6" simply as a reward for size." 
Here's another curious facet. While height is correlated with income for both genders, other sources state the correlation was about 50% stronger in men. This page also claims the height inequalities were greater in men than in women. If this was all due to tall people being genetically superior, then why would there be any difference between short men and short women? I think this proves social norms are at least a factor. If confidence was instead the issue, let's then ponder why short men would have less confidence in the first place, but not short women. However you look at it, everything points back to how society judges people based on height.

And no, this income phenomenon is not the result of a person's socioeconomic background. This page outright states:
"Short individuals are more likely to be in a low social class as adults, independent of their childhood social class."
Also written here:
"Looking at several professions, one study found that people in high-ranking jobs were about two inches taller than those down below, a pattern that held even when comparing men of like educational and socioeconomic status. Senior civil servants in Britain, for instance, tend to be taller than junior ones."
"Give job recruiters two invented resumes that have been carefully matched except for the candidates' height, as one study did in 1969. Fully 72% of the time, the taller man is "hired". And when they are hired, they tend also to earn rather more."
"Short teenaged boys made less money when they became young adults (aged 23) than their taller peers--even after other attributes, such as scores on ability tests or parents' social status, were factored out... Another survey, of graduates of the University of Pittsburgh, found that those who were 6'2" or taller received starting salaries 12% higher than those under six feet."
It's less likely someone is tall because they're rich, but rather, they're more likely to become rich if they're tall. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who knows that height is 80% genetic.

It's interesting how height affects a male in both adolescence and adulthood. Why would young short boys just happen to end up worse than tall ones, and why are short girls never in the equation? There's a reason why many of these studies look at short males rather than short people. It's clearly not the intelligence theory, because once again short girls are not affected, and test scores show no correlation. If it's due to the confidence theory, then could it be because tall boys are praised ("wow look at how tall you've grown!"), while short boys are teased and bullied? Meanwhile, anyone who espouses the "confidence" theory needs to ask themselves why confident people happen to be taller than average.

On this note, there’s also the claim that the height premium is due to "teenage confidence" at age 15:
“Controlling for teen height essentially eliminates the effect of adult height on wages,” they wrote... In other words, how tall you are now actually has nothing to do with how much money you will earn; it’s how tall you were in high school that matters. Notably, the economists found that height as a pre-teen or child did not correlate to future success. Only during those crucial, awful, self-conscious pubescent years where we struggle to “find ourselves” does height play a pivotal role in our future earnings. The crucial difference between more and less successful people, it appears, is not height, but what height bestows at age 15: confidence. And just like getting started in sports early correlates to higher chances of professional success, a confident teenager will do more, get more, and be more confident at age 40 than an anxious one. - Source
It seems like whoever wrote that never even skimmed through the paper, which can be viewed here. On page 23, it says:
"Self-esteem, however, seems to have little to do with the teen height premium. Conditioning on self-esteem leaves the estimated teen height premium essentially unchanged. Thus those who were tall teens do not appear to earn more because they had greater self-esteem as teens."

The research concluded that perhaps it has something to do with tall kids getting more opportunities in sports, clubs, and dating, so they have better social skills. Still, by the end the researchers came to no decisive conclusion, and were left scratching their heads about exactly what trait those activities instilled that helps so much at work.

 
As for traits like teamwork, that can also be gained from group projects, and courage is required when being forced to speak in front of the class. I guess these researchers are trying to claim that tall kids get the social boost from sports on top of what everyone else has, but that makes it seem like tall kids are good at everything and have unlimited free time. Any amount of time spent in sports, somebody else could be using that time to practice for a play or debate, all of which also boosts a person's skills. I think their hypothesis overrates sports when it comes to developing social skills. Are they saying the NFL or NBA is full of people who would make for good corporate CEOs? Aside from basketball and sprinting, I think the research also associates tallness too much with athletics. Something like wrestling has weight classes, and even at a professional level, there are many short soccer players. If we're instead talking about school clubs that have nothing to do with height, then we have to ask why shorter kids are excluded, and why they're suddenly not excluded from employment or promotions later in life.

The only thing this "teenage height premium" research is objectively good for is showing the link between teen height and adult income. But considering how the average male stops growing around age 16, I thought it'd already be obvious that the average short teen would make less money as an adult, because the shortest teenagers are most likely to become short adults. The research also points out how height as a pre-teen or child did not correlate to future success, which is curious since the formative years of a child start at age 11. Do these people think kids don't judge based on size before mid-teenage years? Things like bullying start much earlier ("Bullying can begin as early as the preschool years. Bullying behaviors become more intense during middle school, and can continue into high school."). This 13-year-old who committed suicide due to heightism wasn't thinking "I won't kill myself yet, because height only matters a few years later." Just seems awfully convenient how height matters in our mid-teens (right when most stop growing), but not before and not after. Why is the magic number not something like age 11, where a child's formative years start, and it's also when bullying tends to kick up a notch?

It seems this teen premium research hinges on late growth spurts, where a shorter teen becomes taller yet still doesn't make more money. I would love to know the study's sample size of kids who were short at 16, then became significantly taller as adults. A 5'2 16-year-old who becomes 5'4 would likely not be much richer than a 5'3 teen. Even I could have told you that without any research, as most humans cannot estimate height down to the inch. Unless your growth spurt was massive, there won't be a perceptible difference to your social treatment being a 5'1 teenager then becoming a 5'3 adult. Plus, the real advantage of height really starts once you're actually tall. Like in dating, 954 women in this survey say 5'9 is too short, yet only 18 think 6'0 is too short. That's the power of going from average height to tall. Now imagine if your job was in the hands of one of these women, and the halo effect was in play. And even when a man is considered too tall to be attractive for dating, it doesn't change how he is still more imposing, which helps when looking to attain a high ranking position (especially one of authority).

Isn't it funny how height is allegedly strong enough to affect a 16-year-old's disposition, yet it doesn't affect an adult's prospects at all? Height "bestows" confidence in teenage years, but suddenly bestows nothing at work. Like only teenagers discriminate based on height, and height bias disappears in adulthood. It's not like society teaches us about height prejudice as we're being raised, so why would the same bias that exists in teenage years suddenly vanish? The study itself even contemplates height stigma ("short children, if stigmatized because of their stature,might find it more difficult to develop interpersonal skills or positiveself-conception..."). Where does that stigma go when we're all adults?

Fake news claiming short men are angrier, as exposed by hoax-alert.leadstories.com? Written by adults. Donald Trump turning down Bob Corker and Janet Yellen for posts in his administration because of their height? As childish as he can be, Trump's an adult (in a high-ranking position no less). The thousands on social media slandering short men? Most look older than 15 to me. Note how many people believe in the Napoleon Complex/Short Man Syndrome stereotype. Yet if one of these people were in a position of authority, their bias against short men would suddenly not matter? Tough to believe. Everyone loves parroting "correlation does not equal causation" during heightism discussions, but in this case we really have to ask how the correlation between height and self-esteem means the latter is solely the cause. I can believe confidence being a factor, but height being a complete nonfactor is the crazy part. The only difference between a 5'0 person standing next to a 7'0 person is confidence? It all sounds eerily similar to how they sell us on capitalism. Work hard, believe in yourself, and you too can become rich. Meanwhile over half the world's wealth is owned by 1% of the population. What confidence they must have!


The advantage of the Johnson Treatment is clearly IQ or confidence.

There's the simple fact that people are gauged based on stature itself, whether we subconsciously do it or not. Even if a little person puffs out their chest to command respect through sheer confidence, when a tall person does the same, who controls the room now? This is why height is an advantage. For every short person who is confident, you'll have a tall person who is also confident while at the same time being physically more intimidating. What's more imposing, a chihuahua or a great dane? If women were bigger and stronger than men on average, would everything regarding gender remain the same as it does now? On this note, unlike height, gender still has an effect on the self-employed. At least with this, you can make a case about how a woman's own mentality/choices is what's causing the income difference. This is not the case with height.

Society simply links importance with size. This is evident in how we say "a man of his stature." I was reading a fantasy novel (Gotrek & Felix The Reckoning) and there was a moment where they spotted and immediately knew who was king, because "he towered over his advisers." I played a video game (Dragon Quest Heroes 2) where the protagonist literally said in one scene, "I expected the king to be taller." Point is, if you are looking to obtain a better position at work, it literally pays to be tall, because people associate value with height. Here's a study on the association between stature and status. Here's a newer one that further displays how people associate leadership with tall height, although I don't agree with their conclusion that it's 100% biologically driven. Basically, they found that both American and international students tend to draw a taller leader when told to depict a leader meeting a citizen. This leaves out how many places have been colonized, and how much influence the west has on other countries (for example look at how well Hollywood does in China). Tribal cultures on the other hand don't show as much height bias. I believe height bias may start instinctively, but then society slowly makes short men's image worse over time, due to various stereotypes, portrayals, idioms, social media, etc. Imagine being a short man before phrases like "short man syndrome" were widespread. You'd probably be less socially disadvantaged.

Whatever the case, the "confidence/ambition" explanation for the height income difference is the salt in the wound. Essentially the excuse is, "If you don't negotiate for more, it's your fault if you get shafted." They're saying short people aren't hungry enough. This all becomes contradictory, when we remind ourselves of how people stereotype short men as being extra ambitious in order to compensate. Apparently it happens so often that society needed to coin the "Napoleon Complex." Yet when it's convenient, we're to pretend short men are less ambitious? Then why do short men get the stereotype of being more ambitious? I'm not even going to go into how ridiculous it is that's it's considered a negative if a short man becomes more ambitious, but a positive when let's say, a poor person does the same.

The least everyone can do is be more aware of our biases, be they biologically or socially driven, rather than rationalizing how it must be short people's fault for not doing as well. Harvard's Implicit Association Test has shown that people are as biased about height as things like age or race. Trying to brush all this away with platitudes like "be more confident" is very disingenuous.

Update: Thanks to America's recent politics, here are some blatant examples of how much height matters when it comes to hierarchy:
That last link is my favorite, because I'm not sure how the "your confidence/IQ is too low" theories explain why the top Google search during a presidential debate is about height.


More on height in business:
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