Height, marriage, and partner characteristics for women in low- and middle-income countries

In both historical and contemporary populations, taller individuals have been shown to fare better in marriage markets. Height has been positively associated with the propensity to marry, length of marriage, and the education and economic outcomes of marriage partners. These associations are most commonly identified for male samples. Studies using female samples are few in number and mixed in their findings. This study uses a pooled sample of national surveys from 64 countries to evaluate how women’s height may relate to the timing of marriage and partner characteristics. The findings suggest that women’s height shows modest associations to the timing of marriage, partner education, and partner occupation status. The strongest effects from height occur toward the extremes of the height distribution. There is some variation in these relationships across three major developing regions (Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia), and for education in particular, the association is shown to be stronger in countries with shorter average female height.