IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucn/wpaper/201036.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Height and well-being amongst older Europeans

Author

Listed:
  • Kevin Denny

Abstract

This paper uses a cross?country representative sample of Europeans over the age of 50 to analyse whether individuals’ height is associated with higher or lower levels of well?being. Two outcomes are used: a measure of depression symptoms reported by individuals and a categorical measure of life satisfaction. It is shown that there is a concave relationship between height and symptoms of depression. These results are sensitive to the inclusion of several sets of controls reflecting demographics, human capital and health status. While parsimonious models suggest that height is protective against depression, the addition of controls, particularly related to health, suggests the reverse effect: tall people are predicted to have slightly more symptoms of depression. Height has no significant association with life satisfaction in models with controls for health and human capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin Denny, 2010. "Height and well-being amongst older Europeans," Working Papers 201036, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201036
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10197/2670
    File Function: First version, 2010
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hübler, Olaf, 2009. "The nonlinear link between height and wages in Germany, 1985-2004," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 191-199, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. The negative effect of height on well-being: a tall story?
      by Kevin Denny in Geary Behaviour Centre on 2010-10-22 08:03:00

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vincenzo Carrieri & Maria De Paola, 2011. "The Effects Of Peoples’ Height And Relative Height On Well-Being," Working Papers 201110, Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF.
    2. Carrieri, Vincenzo & De Paola, Maria, 2012. "Height and subjective well-being in Italy," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 289-298.
    3. Fernihough, Alan & McGovern, Mark E., 2015. "Physical stature decline and the health status of the elderly population in England," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 30-44.
    4. Kevin Denny, 2017. "Are the Effects of Height on Well-Being a Tall Tale?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 18(5), pages 1445-1458, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tao, Hung-Lin, 2014. "Height, weight, and entry earnings of female graduates in Taiwan," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 85-98.
    2. Böckerman, Petri & Vainiomäki, Jari, 2013. "Stature and life-time labor market outcomes: Accounting for unobserved differences," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 86-96.
    3. Howard Bodenhorn & Carolyn Moehling & Gregory N. Price, 2012. "Short Criminals: Stature and Crime in Early America," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(2), pages 393-419.
    4. Andreas Schick & Richard H. Steckel, 2015. "Height, Human Capital, and Earnings: The Contributions of Cognitive and Noncognitive Ability," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(1), pages 94-115.
    5. Thompson, Kristina & Portrait, France & Schoonmade, Linda, 2023. "The height premium: A systematic review and meta-analysis," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    6. Yamamura, Eiji & Smyth, Russell & Zhang, Yan, 2015. "Decomposing the effect of height on income in China: The role of market and political channels," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 62-74.
    7. Kevin Denny, 2017. "Are the Effects of Height on Well-Being a Tall Tale?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 18(5), pages 1445-1458, October.
    8. Price, Gregory N., 2013. "The allometry of metabolism and stature: Worker fatigue and height in the Tanzanian labor market," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 515-521.
    9. Michael Baker & Kirsten Cornelson, 2019. "The Tall and the Short of the Returns to Height," NBER Working Papers 26325, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Hübler, Olaf, 2019. "The Role of Body Weight for Health, Earnings and Life Satisfaction," IZA Discussion Papers 12078, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Andreas Schick & Richard H. Steckel, 2010. "Height as a Proxy for Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Ability," NBER Working Papers 16570, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Kim, Tae Hyun & Han, Euna, 2017. "Height premium for job performance," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 13-20.
    13. Carrieri, Vincenzo & De Paola, Maria, 2012. "Height and subjective well-being in Italy," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 289-298.
    14. Rietveld, Cornelius A. & Hessels, Jolanda & van der Zwan, Peter, 2015. "The stature of the self-employed and its relation with earnings and satisfaction," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 59-74.
    15. Lee, Wang-Sheng, 2014. "Big and Tall: Is there a Height Premium or Obesity Penalty in the Labor Market?," IZA Discussion Papers 8606, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Cornelius A. Rietveld & Jolanda Hessels & Peter van der Zwan, 2014. "The Stature of the Self-employed and its Premium," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 14-109/VII, Tinbergen Institute.
    17. Manfredini, Matteo & Breschi, Marco & Fornasin, Alessio & Seghieri, Chiara, 2013. "Height, socioeconomic status and marriage in Italy around 1900," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 465-473.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201036. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Nicolas Clifton (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/educdie.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.