Source: psychologytoday.com<\/p>\n
When it comes to\u00a0dating,\u00a0education, and earnings, is being tall more of an advantage, or is being short more of a liability?<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0Women prefer to date taller men; tall men attract more desirable partners<\/strong>. On average, women have a strong preference for tall men. In fact, women care more about dating taller men than men care about dating shorter women.<\/p>\n A\u00a0study\u00a0on women and men\u2019s height preferences found that women are most satisfied when their partner was 8 inches (21cm) taller. Men are most satisfied when they are 3 inches (8cm) taller than their partner. Another\u00a0study\u00a0found that among men, 13.5 percent prefer to date only women shorter than them. But among women, about half (48.9 percent) preferred to date only men taller than them.<\/p>\n Relatedly, a\u00a0study\u00a0about height and human mate choice found that, on average, the shortest man a woman would date is 5 feet 9 inches tall. And the shortest woman a man would date is 5 feet 1 inch tall. In the same study, researchers found that 23% of men and 4% of women would accept a relationship where the woman was taller.<\/p>\n Finally, researchers have\u00a0found\u00a0that women married to taller men report being in better health, have lower BMIs, more education, and higher incomes compared to women married to shorter men.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0People view short women and men as less attractive and less successful.<\/strong>\u00a0In a\u00a0paper\u00a0titled,\u00a0Height Stereotypes of Women and Men: The Liabilities of Shortness for Both Sexes,<\/em>\u00a0researchers investigated stereotypes about height. Researchers asked a group of participants to imagine a woman who was either \u201cshort\u201d (4 feet 10 inches), \u201caverage\u201d (5 feet 4 inches), or \u201ctall\u201d (5 feet 10 inches). Next, participants rated the women on various characteristics.<\/p>\n Participants rated both tall and average height women as more attractive and more successful than short women. But there was no difference in the ratings between tall and average height women. Participants also rated men described as \u201cshort\u201d (5 feet 4 inches), \u201caverage\u201d (5 feet 10 inches) and \u201ctall\u201d (6 feet 4 inches).<\/p>\n Participants viewed short men as less socially attractive, less successful, less physically attractive, less well-adjusted, and less masculine than both average and tall men. Average and tall men did not differ on those characteristics. But participants viewed tall men as more athletic than average (and short) men. The researchers state that \u201cshortness is more of a liability than tallness is an asset.\u201d<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0Tall people make more money. Economists call this the \u201cheight premium.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0More height is associated with higher earnings. One study\u00a0found\u00a0that for both men and women, a 1-inch increase in height is associated with a 1.4\u20132.9 percent increase in weekly earnings.<\/p>\n Another\u00a0study\u00a0found that each inch of height is associated with earning nearly $800 more per year. This suggests that men who are 6 feet tall earn, on average, about $160,000 more over a 30-year\u00a0career\u00a0compared with men who are 5 feet 5 inches tall.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0Tall people are more educated.<\/strong>\u00a0This is likely one reason why taller people, on average, earn more. In fact, some researchers\u00a0attribute\u00a0the height premium to taller people obtaining more education. As a result, they enter higher-paying positions.<\/p>\n In the\u00a0U.S., men in white-collar jobs are about one inch taller than men in blue-collar jobs. In the UK, the situation is\u00a0similar: men in white-collar jobs are 0.6 inches taller, on average, than men in blue-collar jobs.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not just men. Women in professional and managerial positions are about one inch taller than women in manual positions. Interestingly, researchers have found education differences related to height even within families.<\/p>\n A\u00a0study\u00a0of 950,000 Swedish men found that among pairs of brothers, the taller brother was more likely to obtain a higher education. Men taller than 6 feet 3 inches (194 cm) were 2 to 3 times more likely to obtain a higher education compared to men shorter than 5 feet 4 inches (165 cm). The same study also controlled for year of birth, socioeconomic status, shared family factors, and cognitive ability. They still found a significant positive correlation between height and education.<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0Short men report being less healthy.<\/strong>\u00a0A team of researchers collected\u00a0data\u00a0from 165,606 people in the U.S., including self-reported health. The scale contained five categories (\u201cPoor\u201d, \u201cFair\u201d, \u201cGood\u201d, \u201cVery good\u201d, and \u201cExcellent\u201d). Results revealed that shorter men reported worse health than taller men. Furthermore, they also found that shorter men married women who reported worse health than women married to taller men.<\/p>\n As the researchers put it, \u201cShort men were less educated, less healthy, had a higher BMI, and lower household income than taller men … women of a given height who were paired with shorter partners also tended to be less healthy, less educated, and with a higher BMI than women of the same height who were paired with taller partners.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1922,1923,689,1920,81,1921],"class_list":["post-1908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-increase-height","tag-desirable","tag-economists-call","tag-height","tag-less-attractive","tag-research","tag-taller-men"],"yoast_head":"\n