WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Taller people are happier, at least on average. According to recent data from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index study, taller people are more satisfied with their lives than shorter people are; are more likely to report experiencing several positive emotions such as enjoyment and happiness; and are less likely to report experiencing negative emotions such as anger, sadness, stress, and worry. Taller people are also less likely to report experiencing physical pain.
As a part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index study, people were asked to give their heights, and to evaluate their current lives using the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale with steps numbered from 0 to 10, where "0" indicates the worst possible life and "10" the best possible life.
Men who are above-average height (5 feet 10 inches) perceive themselves nearly one-seventh of a step above men who are below-average height. For women, there is less of a difference. Women who are above-average height (5 feet 4 inches) perceive themselves about one-tenth of a step above women of below-average height. Of course, there are shorter people who are very satisfied with their lives and taller people who are not satisfied with their lives. But averaging all respondents shows systematic and important differences.
To take a topical example, Senator Barack Obama is three inches above the mean, and Senator John McCain is three inches below the mean, a difference that, on average, would place them one-seventh of a step apart on the ladder. Of course, any difference in life satisfaction from their heights is likely to be swamped by the effects of November's election, though it is perhaps worth noting that recent presidential elections have more often than not been won by the taller candidate.
These "height factor" differences may seem small, but if we compare them to other factors that affect life satisfaction, they are actually substantial. One of the most consistently powerful predictors of life satisfaction is family income. The Gallup data suggest it would take a 29% increase in income to have the same effect on men's life satisfaction as moving from below-average to above-average height. Alternatively, each additional inch of height has the same effect on reported life satisfaction as a 4% increase in family income.
The previous graph shows the average heights of men and women on different steps of the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale. On average, men who give their lives the worst possible rating are more than three-quarters of an inch shorter than the average man, while women on the bottom step are about half an inch shorter than the average woman. On the other hand, people who give their lives the best possible rating are slightly shorter on average than those who are a step or two below them on the ladder.
Overall life satisfaction isn't the only positive outcome related to being taller. The Gallup Poll Daily tracking survey asks respondents about emotions they felt the previous day -- such as enjoyment, physical pain, happiness, worry, sadness, stress, and anger. Taller men and women are less likely to say they experienced physical pain, worry, sadness, stress, and anger, and are more likely to say they experienced enjoyment and happiness.
What Doesn't Matter
Could other demographic characteristics of taller and shorter people account for some of the differences in individuals' reported life satisfaction? Taller people are typically younger than shorter people because Americans have been becoming taller over time. Hispanic Americans are shorter than African Americans or whites. Race, ethnicity, and age all do influence life satisfaction and the daily life experiences of the other emotions -- but controlling for them does not eliminate the effect of height on life satisfaction.
Marital status also has a powerful effect on life satisfaction, with currently married people rating their lives more highly than those who are separated, divorced, widowed, or who have never been married. When controlling for the effect of marital status, the effect of height on life satisfaction is somewhat reduced, but still remains statistically significant. Taller people have "better" marital outcomes, and so some of the positive effects of height may work through marital status.
What Does Matter
The main reason why taller people do better is because they have higher incomes, they are better educated, and they work in higher status occupations. People with more education have higher income and higher status jobs, and they earn more money. Money, in turn, is a powerful predictor of life satisfaction and of the probability of experiencing more positive and less negative emotion. Once we control for income, or for education, height by itself has little or no predictive value for the ladder or the emotions.
Among respondents who report monthly family incomes of $60 or more, there is a steady increase in average height as income levels increase -- especially for men. (Family income may sometimes be a more accurate indicator of men's than of women's earnings.) This pattern is also evident in looking at height differences by education groups. Men who did not graduate from high school are on average more than an inch shorter than average-height men are and are 1½ to 2 inches shorter than the average college-educated man is. The differences are slightly less for women.
Which brings us to the final question of why it is that taller people should be better educated, have higher incomes, and higher status occupations. One persuasive if provocative answer has recently been given by Anne Case and Christina Paxson of Princeton University: taller people are more likely than shorter people to have reached their full cognitive potential.
Their story goes back to the first years of childhood. If everything goes according to plan, if children are well nourished throughout their childhood, and they are kept away from childhood diseases that might slow their growth, they will eventually reach the adult height set by their genetic potential. Because height is heritable, kids from taller families will tend to be taller, and kids from shorter families will tend to be shorter. However, being taller or shorter for reasons of heredity alone should have no effect on adult outcomes. But not everything always goes according to plan, and perhaps through lack of good nutrition, or through exposure to disease, some children will not attain their full potential height. And there is good evidence that cognitive and physical function develop together, so that children who don't make their potential heights also don't develop their full cognitive potential. This lack of full cognitive development accounts for lower levels of education, and lower earnings in adulthood, which, in turn, are responsible for lower levels of life satisfaction and poorer emotional outcomes. That height should be associated with these outcomes is predicted by Case and Paxson's analysis, and the results from the Gallup Poll provide support for their interpretation.
Angus Deaton is a Gallup Senior Scientist, as well as the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Professor of Economics and International Affairs, both at Princeton University.
Survey Methods
Results are based more than 1,000 interviews per day conducted from Jan. 2 to July 7, 2008. Sampling errors associated with calculations in this article vary from statistic to statistic. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
About the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index tracks the well-being of U.S. residents every day, with the goal of providing the world's most up-to-date measure of individual and collective health and well-being. For this survey, Gallup is interviewing no fewer than 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide each day during 2008. The large scale of the study allows for comparisons of well-being across days, regions, states, ZIP Codes, and climate zones over time -- as well as comparisons with Gallup surveys of well-being in more than 140 countries worldwide. Perhaps most importantly, these measures provide a valuable tool to all policy-makers, business leaders, and healthcare providers engaged in improving the health and well-being of their constituencies.
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