Anthropometry and Socioeconomics in the Couple: Evidence from the PSID
36 Pages Posted: 2 Jul 2009
Date Written: July 2, 2009
Abstract
We empirically analyze the marriage market aspects of body size, weight and height in the US using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics on anthropometric characteristics of both spouses. Gender-asymmetric tradeoffs arise within couples between physical and socioeconomic traits, but also between anthropometric traits, with significant penalties for fatter women and shorter men. Wives’ obesity (body size or weight) measures are negatively correlated with their husbands’ income, education and height, controlling for his weight (or body size) and her height, along with spouses’ demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Conversely, heavier husbands are not penalized by matching with poorer or shorter wives, but only with less educated women. Men’s and women’s height are both valued in the market, with shorter men matched to heavier and less educated wives, and shorter women to poorer and less educated husbands (the latter effect only shows up in 2005).
Keywords: weight, height, BMI, marriage market
JEL Classification: D1, I1, J1
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
Intermarriage, Language, and Economic Assimilation Process: A Case Study of France
By Xin Meng and Dominique Meurs
-
Interethnic Marriages and Economic Assimilation of Immigrants
-
Gender and Assimilation Among Mexican Americans
By Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn
-
Ethnic Identification, Intermarriage, and Unmeasured Progress by Mexican Americans
By Brian Duncan and Stephen J. Trejo
-
Ethnic Identification, Intermarriage, and Unmeasured Progress by Mexican Americans
By Brian Duncan and Stephen J. Trejo
-
Intergenerational Progress of Mexican-Origin Workers in the U.S. Labor Market
-
Ethnic Intermarriage Among Immigrants: Human Capital and Assortative Mating
-
By Brian Duncan and Stephen J. Trejo