Anthropometry of love - height and gender asymmetries in interethnic marriages

Arbeitspapier

Both in the UK and in the US, we observe puzzling gender asymmetries in the propensity to outmarry: Black men are more likely to have white spouses than Black women, but the opposite is true for Chinese: Chinese men are half less likely to be married to a White person than Chinese women. We argue that differences in height distributions, combined with a simple preference for a taller husband, can partly explain these ethnic-specific gender asymmetries. Blacks are taller than Asians, and we argue that this significantly affects their marriage prospects with whites. We provide empirical support for this hypothesis using data from the Millenium Cohort Study, which contains valuable and unique information on heights of married couples.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 2846

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure; Domestic Abuse ; Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
• Subject: intermarriage ; gender ; height ; Anthropologie ; Ethnische Gruppe ; Ehe ; USA ; Großbritannien

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Belot, Michèle ; Fidrmuc, Jan
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2009

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/30496
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET