Anthropometry of Love: Height and Gender Asymmetries in Interethnic Marriages

29 Pages Posted: 15 Oct 2009

See all articles by Jan Fidrmuc

Jan Fidrmuc

Brunel University - Department of Economics and Finance; L.E.M., Université de Lille; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); Global Labor Organization (GLO); Institute for Strategy and Analysis, Government Office of the Slovak Republic

Michèle Belot

University of Oxford - Nuffield Department of Medicine

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: January 14, 2009

Abstract

Both in the UK and in the US, we observe puzzling gender asymmetries in the propensity to outmarry: Black men are substantially more likely to have white spouses than Black women, but the opposite is true for Chinese: Chinese men are half less likely to be married to a White person than Chinese women. We argue that differences in height distributions, combined with a simple preference for a taller husband, can explain a large proportion of these ethnic-specific gender asymmetries. Blacks are taller than Asians, and we argue that this significantly affects their marriage prospects with whites. We provide empirical support for this hypothesis using data from the Health Survey for England and the Millenium Cohort Study, which contains valuable and unique information on heights of married couples.

Keywords: Intermarriage, gender, height

JEL Classification: J12, J15

Suggested Citation

Fidrmuc, Jan and Fidrmuc, Jan and Belot, Michèle V. K., Anthropometry of Love: Height and Gender Asymmetries in Interethnic Marriages (January 14, 2009). William Davidson Institute Working Paper No. 950, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1488868 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1488868

Jan Fidrmuc (Contact Author)

Brunel University - Department of Economics and Finance ( email )

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L.E.M., Université de Lille ( email )

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CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute) ( email )

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Global Labor Organization (GLO) ( email )

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Michèle V. K. Belot

University of Oxford - Nuffield Department of Medicine ( email )

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Oxford, OX1 1NF
United Kingdom

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