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Height and Happiness in a Developing Country

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  • Kitae Sohn

Abstract

This paper analyzes the Indonesian Family Life Survey to estimate the relationship between height and happiness in a developing country, Indonesia. This paper finds that tall men and women are happier than their short counterparts and that the magnitude of the relationship is large. More important, a parsimonious set of channels is identified to substantially explain the relationship between height and happiness: education and earnings for men, and education and relative position of earnings for women. However, for men but not for women, height still exhibits a non-negligible relationship with happiness even after controlling for an extensive array of covariates. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Suggested Citation

  • Kitae Sohn, 2016. "Height and Happiness in a Developing Country," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 1-23, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:17:y:2016:i:1:p:1-23
    DOI: 10.1007/s10902-014-9566-8
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    Cited by:

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    2. Sha Fan & Renuka Mahadevan, 2023. "Optimistic income expectations and meeting those expectations: What matters for well‐being in a developing country?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 70(2), pages 115-132, May.
    3. Illoong Kwon & Kitae Sohn, 2017. "Job dissatisfaction of the self-employed in Indonesia," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 233-249, June.
    4. Kunto, Yohanes Sondang & Mandemakers, Jornt J., 2019. "The effects of prenatal exposure to Ramadan on stature during childhood and adolescence: Evidence from the Indonesian Family Life Survey," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 29-39.
    5. Yang, Xiao & Gao, Jian & Liu, Jin-Hu & Zhou, Tao, 2018. "Height conditions salary expectations: Evidence from large-scale data in China," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 501(C), pages 86-97.

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