Short People Got No Reason To Live

Katherine Mangu-Ward | September 6, 2006

Economists have long been irritated by the weird fact that tall people have better jobs and earn more money. Many explanations have been offered, various forms of social and individual discrimination first among them. But two Princeton economists disagree: "In this paper, we offer a simpler explanation: On average, taller people earn more because they are smarter."

For both men and women, an increase in height of four inches is associated with an earnings premium of approximately 10 percent. ...An American man who is 6 feet 2 inches tall is 3 percentage points more likely to be an executive and 2 percentage points more likely to be a professional than is a man who stands 5 feet 10.

Childhood scores on intelligence tests show a correlation between height and cognitive ability, and this remains true throughout life, they report.

Yet more evidence that Edmund Burke was right: Prejudices can be useful--if short people are being discriminated against in the job market, it's only because (statistically speaking) they're dumb as a box of rocks.

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