Anthropometry of Love - Height and Gender Asymmetries in Interethnic Marriages

Michèle Belot and Jan Fidrmuc

No 2846, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: intermarriage; gender; height (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Anthropometry of love: Height and gender asymmetries in interethnic marriages (2010)
Working Paper: Anthropometry of Love: Height and Gender Asymmetries in Interethnic Marriages (2009)
Working Paper: Anthropometry of Love Height and Gender Asymmetries in Interethnic Marriages (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_2846

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