Tall men win in marriage and at work

It has long been known that, on average, tall men rise above their shorter colleagues in the workplace.

Not only are around 90% of high-powered business CEOs taller than the average height, but studies have shown that just a few extra centimetres of vertical growth result in a substantial increase in earning power.

Thanks to new research by sociologists in New York, we can now add marriage to the fields in which the tall man appears to be in the ascendant.

By looking at data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which has been conducting surveys of US families since 1968, researchers found tall men tend to get married earlier than shorter men. Statistically, they are also more likely to marry women who are older and educated to a higher level.

The authors of the working paper suggest the traditional association of height with attractiveness, masculinity and status is a possible reason for the trend.

It is not all bad news for shorter men, however. While they may wait longer for their true love, when they do marry they tend to stay married for longer. The rate of divorce among short men is significantly lower than among average and tall men.

Short men also earn more than their partner, who tends to be less educated. This can be seen as short men "making up" for their lack of height by bringing in money. In contrast, the divergence in spousal income among partners where the man is tall is not as marked.

"This further confirms [that] short men compensate for their lower physical status with higher proportional earnings, while tall men appear more likely to use their status to attract women with higher relative earnings," the paper concludes.