Personality and Individual Differences 91 (2016) 14–21

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Personality and Individual Differences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid

Does a taller husband make his wife happier?

Kitae Sohn
Department of Economics, Konkuk University, 120 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 05029, South Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Although it has been known that women prefer tall men in mating for evolutionary reasons, no study has inves-
Received 19 August 2015 tigated whether a taller husband makes his wife happier. We analyzed two datasets (N = 7850) that are, togeth-
Received in revised form 17 November 2015 er, representative of the Indonesian population to determine whether this is true. A greater height difference in a
Accepted 18 November 2015
couple was positively related to the wife's happiness. This relationship gradually weakened over time and entire-
Available online xxxx
ly dissipated by 18 years of marital duration. The husband's resourcefulness was a minor mediator in the relation-
Keywords:
ship. We thus argue that the husband's height and its correlates made his wife initially happy, but their influence
Height waned over time. Nevertheless, the long period of the dissipation indicates a powerful impact of male height on
Happiness women's psychology, probably prepared by evolution.
Marriage © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Evolution
Indonesia

1. Introduction
Many women say that they prefer tall men to short men. Vaillant
and Wolff (2010) documented from French data collected in
1993–1999 that 41% of women specifically mentioned tallness as a de-
sirable trait, whereas only 7.5% of men did. It could be that women
only say this but do not act upon it. Pawlowski and Koziel (2002), how-
ever, analyzed the lonely hearts advertisements that appeared in Poland
between 1994 and 1996, and found that taller men received more re-
sponses. This was the same for online dating in Boston and San Diego
(Hitsch, Hortaçsu, & Ariely, 2010). One could still object that responses
to advertisements, whether online or offline, might be just for fun
with no actual consequences. Kurzban and Weeden (2005) employed
data provided by HurryDate, which is a commercial dating service
aimed at adult singles living in major metropolitan areas of the US;
their dataset revealed the participants' choices with actual conse-
quences. They continued to find that women chose taller men more fre-
quently for a date.
Dating does not require serious commitment, so women may be-
have differently in the case of marriage. Even for marriage, however,
taller men are more likely to get married. Although evidence supporting
this is not unanimous (Hacker, 2008), a sufficient amount of evidence
has been advanced by Fu and Goldman (1996) for the US in
1979–1991, by Harper (2000) for the UK in 1991, by Murray (2000)
for the 1884–1899 classes of Amherst College in the US, by Herpin
(2005) for France in 2001, by Belot and Fidrmuc (2010) for UK intereth-
nic marriages, and by Manfredini, Breschi, Fornasin, and Seghieri (2013)
for two Italian communities at the turn of the 20th century.
E-mail address: ksohn@konkuk.ac.kr.
One can attribute the origin of the female preference for male height
to evolutionary processes. Taller men were perceived to be stronger,
and women presumed that taller men could provide more resources
and protection for them and their offspring; as a consequence, ancestral
women tended to select tall men for mating (Buss, 2003; Courtiol,
Raymond, Godelle, & Ferdy, 2010). Such men would also beget male off-
spring who in turn would be reproductively successful and carry copies
of the women's genes—the sexy son hypothesis (Weatherhead &
Robertson, 1979). In fact, height is correlated with many positive attri-
butes such as physical strength, cognitive and noncognitive skills, and
socio-economic status in contemporary Western countries (Case &
Paxson, 2008; Lundborg, Nystedt, & Rooth, 2014; Persico, Postlewaite,
& Silverman, 2004) and Indonesia (Sohn, 2015a, 2015e). Women thus
perceive male height, correctly or not, as a marker of a good provider.
Considering the female preference for male height, we hypothesized
that a woman who marries a taller man is happier. Two points are worth
recalling at this point. First, women prefer not just tall men but men
taller than themselves, which is known as the male-taller norm
(Pierce, 1996). Pawlowski (2003) used six pairs of human outlines
with different levels of sexual dimorphism in stature (SDS) and demon-
strated that Polish people adjusted their preferences for SDS in relation
to their own height. Fink, Neave, Brewer, and Pawlowski (2007) used
the same strategy and found the same results for people in Germany,
Austria, and the UK. The norm is not universal since it was not clearly
observed in some traditional societies (Sorokowski & Butovskaya,
2012; Sorokowski, Sorokowska, Fink, & Mberira, 2011; Sorokowski
et al., 2015). However, Indonesia is no longer a traditional society
where people hunt, gather, herd, or forage for a living. Indonesian cou-
ples exhibit an SDS of 1.07 (Sohn, 2015d, 2015e) and assortative mating
(later explained in Fig. 1); an SDS of 1.07 in couples is typical among
humans (Gaulin & Boster, 1992; Sohn, in press-c). Indonesians thus

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.11.039
0191-8869/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 K. Sohn / Personality and Individual Differences 91 (2016) 14–21
Fig. 1. Assortative mating by height.
conform to the norm in actual mating although it is another question
whether Indonesians consciously consider the norm in mating (Sohn,
2015d). These findings urged us to consider not only a husband's height
but also the height difference in a couple.
Second, marriage is based on commitment, so marriage typically
lasts for a certain period. It is thus necessary to consider marital dura-
tion. One can consider two scenarios of marital happiness over marital
duration. A wife may enjoy happiness to the same degree over time. Al-
ternatively, the sources of initial (un)happiness gradually lose their in-
fluence. The wife might get used to her husband's height and its
correlates such as physical attractiveness and strength, income, wealth,
health, and education. She might lose her characteristics that enabled
her to marry her tall husband, such as beauty; the loss could cause her
unhappiness directly or indirectly by changing her husband's behavior
such as showing less affection to her, more affection to other women,
and providing less childcare. We can determine the trend in the wife's
happiness by interacting the height difference in a couple with their
marital duration, while taking the wife's happiness as the dependent
variable. If the interaction term is negative and statistically significant,
the weakening hypothesis is preferred; otherwise, the constant hypoth-
esis is preferred.
Aside from the trend in happiness, one may also want to identify the
sources of her happiness. There are many sources, and it is impossible to
accurately measure all. We thus could not identify all sources, but two
potential sources are worth considering. One is the intrinsic value of
height; that is, women simply like tall men, while unable to say why.
This is similar to people favoring fatty, salty, and sugary foods without
knowing exactly why: such foods are essential to survival but were
scarce as humans evolved; hence craving such foods increased repro-
ductive fitness in the past (Lindeberg, 2010). Similarly, the female pref-
erence for male height increased women's reproductive fitness. We
could not directly measure this source, and it was included in the “ev-
erything else” category. The other is male resourcefulness, which we
could measure, although crudely. The female preference for male re-
sourcefulness in mating is prevalent and related to height. If a husband's
height acts as a marker of his resourcefulness, controlling for his re-
sourcefulness would substantially weaken the relationship between
his height and his wife's happiness. Otherwise, we have to leave the
question unanswered.
We tried to answer these two questions (i.e., happiness trends and
sources) by using two datasets that are, together, representative of the
Indonesian population. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the
first to tackle this issue in the happiness literature. This study is also of
15
importance because only a few studies have discussed the relationships
of spousal characteristics to happiness. For example, Groot and Van Den
Brink (2002) explained how age and educational differences within
couples were related to their happiness. Relatedly, García, Molina, and
Navarro (2010) showed that the husband's education level was posi-
tively related to his wife's satisfaction with income. Powdthavee
(2009) elucidated that one's happiness was positively related to the
spouse's happiness. Guven, Senik, and Stichnoth (2012) treated happi-
ness as an independent variable and argued that a gap between happi-
ness levels in a couple was a good predictor for their future divorce. In
all, height is missing.
Moreover, this study contributes to regional studies as the country of
interest is Indonesia. A series of studies by Sohn (2013a, 2013b, in
press-a, in press-b) considered several aspects of happiness in
Indonesia, but none of them considered height and happiness in mar-
riage. When height and happiness in marriage are a research topic, the
Indonesian population provides a straightforward case because almost
all women there marry and divorce is rare (Sohn, 2015d, 2015e,in
press-b). Therefore, bias resulting from selection into and out of mar-
riage is minimal. Moreover, when height is considered, Indonesia pre-
sents an interesting case because it belonged to the region where the
mean height was the shortest in the world over the past two centuries
(Baten & Blum, 2012); the population remains one of the shortest pop-
ulations in the world at present (Sohn, 2014, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c,
2015e, in press-a). When tallness is scarce, women may enjoy more
happiness from tallness than otherwise, and consequently, we would
find strong evidence of the relationship between height difference in a
couple and the wife's happiness in Indonesia.
2. Data
We analyzed two datasets: the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS)
and the Indonesian Family Life Survey East (IFLS East). The IFLS, an on-
going longitudinal survey, started collecting data on more than 22,000
individuals in 7224 households in 13 provinces in 1993 (IFLS1); the
population of the provinces represented by IFLS1 accounted for 83% of
the Indonesian population in the year. Four follow-ups ensued in 1997
(IFLS2), 1998 (IFLS2 +), 2000 (IFLS3), and 2007 (IFLS4). Although the
survey is a longitudinal survey, we employed IFLS4 because only this
follow-up contains the variable of happiness. Of the 10,994 target
households, IFLS4 re-contacted 90.6% (6596 original IFLS1 households
and 3366 old split-off households), and an additional 4033 new split-
off households were contacted.
The IFLS has excluded most of the eastern part of Indonesia for cost
and security considerations. There has been, however, a growing inter-
est in promoting a more balanced development and in extending devel-
opment benefits to the less developed eastern part. In 2012, IFLS East
collected data from 7 provinces not covered by the IFLS. We combined
IFLS4 and IFLS East and constructed a nationally representative dataset.
Of 3159 households selected for IFLS East, 2547 (80.6%) households pro-
vided at least a partial interview. These households jointly had 10,887
household members, of which 10,759 (98.8%) provided at least a partial
interview, but partial interviews were rare. In addition, 9929 (91.2%)
were measured in the biomarker module (including height). These re-
sponse rates led to the high quality of the data. Moreover, the question-
naires of IFLS East are almost the same as those of IFLS4, so we faced few
of the problems that usually arise from merging multiple datasets of dif-
ferent structures.
The dependent variable of interest was happiness, which was mea-
sured by the respondent's answer to the following question: “Taken
all things together how would you say things are these days—would
you say you were very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” This
question listed three levels of happiness in itself (i.e., very happy, pretty
happy, and not too happy), but the respondent was presented with four
options: very unhappy, unhappy, happy, and very happy. This question
is identical to that of the US General Social Survey and is nearly identical
16 K. Sohn / Personality and Individual Differences 91 (2016) 14–21
to that of the Euro Barometer Survey Series, and both surveys offer three
levels of happiness. In addition, the response of very unhappy was pro-
vided by 87 of 29,059 respondents in the raw IFLS4 data and 42 of 5910
in the raw IFLS East data. Furthermore, the survey question listed three
responses. For these reasons, we combined the responses of very un-
happy and unhappy. Below, we showed that the results remained the
same regardless of this combination.
Kahneman and Deaton (2010) highlighted the distinction between
evaluative and hedonic subjective wellbeing; the former is related to
long-term wellbeing, and the latter to short-term wellbeing. Our happi-
ness question is not a pure form of either evaluative or hedonic subjec-
tive wellbeing: “Taken all things together” invites respondents to
evaluate their lives, but “happy” invites contamination by the
respondent's current hedonic state. This mixed nature of the question
is helpful for this study since we were concerned with current happi-
ness, while taking into account marital duration. Although happiness
levels are generally stable over time, it is not unusual to see them
change (Diener, Lucas, & Scollon, 2006). Therefore, the happiness ques-
tion is crude but effective in appreciating happiness over time.
One of the two independent variables of interest was height differ-
ence in a couple, which was defined by the husband's height minus
his wife's height. We excluded heights outside of the range
120–200 cm because they were probably recording errors.1 Specially
trained nurses measured height, so there was little concern of measure-
ment error and bias resulting from reported height. If measurement
error was present in the variable, it was probably of the classical type,
which would underestimate the coefficient on height difference
(i.e., attenuation bias) and reduce its estimation precision. Because
height difference was created by two height variables, if measurement
error in height was severe, measurement error in height difference
would be more so. Potential attenuation bias implies that, if the coeffi-
cient on height difference was statistically significant, this only rein-
forces our argument that the coefficient was indeed statistically
significant; the coefficient was a lower bound.
Marital duration, the other independent variable of interest, was
available for ever married women aged 15–49, and for IFLS4, it was
also available for women who completed the same module in IFLS3. Be-
cause women self-select into marriage, selection bias was of concern.
For example, relative to an unhappy woman, if a happy woman married
more often and her height difference was greater, the coefficient on
height difference would be biased upward. We checked the degree of
this bias. For similar reasons, survival bias was a potential threat; that
is, relative to an unhappy woman, if a happy woman lived longer and
her height difference was greater, the coefficient on height difference
would also be biased upward. Because 90% of women in the sample
belonged to the age range 15–49, survival bias was probably minimal.
Nevertheless, we also checked the degree of this bias. Our focal group
was married women, and it is worth noting that divorce is rare in
Indonesia. For example, of men and women aged 30–65 in IFLS4, di-
vorced (but not remarried yet) men and women accounted for only
1.5% and 3.5%, respectively. This fact is important because if happiness
and divorce were closely related, divorce would cause another type of
selection bias if unhappy couples tend to get divorced.
In general, people are happy, married individuals are happier than
unmarried individuals, and women are happier than men (Diener &
Diener, 1996). This is also true in Indonesia (Sohn, 2013a, 2013b, in
pres-a, in press-b). Consequently, our focal group was happier than
the average Indonesian population. By construction, the happiness mea-
sure in the data had a ceiling; no one could choose an option higher than
1
Almost no people were affected by this rule, so the rule was immaterial. In IFLS4, of
22,758 individuals aged 20–60 with non-missing heights, only 174 were outside this
height range. In IFLS-East, the corresponding figures were 7 of 4731.
very happy, no matter how happy she was. Hence our sample was al-
ready a happier group than the average population, who were in turn
generally happy, but there was a ceiling in the response. As a result,
there was not much room for improvement in happiness in our sample;
that is, the variation in happiness was small, and therefore, estimation
precision decreased. Our sample was extracted in a way that would
make it difficult to find a statistically significant relationship between
height difference and the wife's happiness. If the relationship was statis-
tically significant, this only reinforces our argument that the relation-
ship indeed existed and was not a false positive.
We chose covariates that have been argued to exert great influence
on happiness: age, years of schooling, self-reported healthy status, per-
ceived income ladder, urban (vs. rural) residence, husband's income in
the previous year, a dummy indicating zero income, and county fixed
effects. To save space, we provided descriptions of the variables in the
appendix. We also experimented with many other covariates used by
previous studies, but the substance of the results remained the same
(not shown). Upon excluding women with missing values, we were
left with 7850 wives.
3. Empirical strategy
Happiness was measured to be ordinal instead of cardinal, so we
cannot say that the difference between three and one is somehow
twice as important as the difference between two and one or three
and two. Respondents used unknown cutoff points to indicate their
happiness levels. An ordered probit model takes these into account
and estimates a relationship between the dependent variable and an in-
dependent variable. Most happiness studies have employed this model
for analyzing cross-sectional data (Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Frijters, 2004),
and so did we. Nevertheless, we later performed robustness checks by
using other methods.
We based our empirical specification on the following simple con-
ceptual framework (the appendix lists the empirical specification). We
regarded that the wife's happiness (U) is a function of height difference,
marital duration, and other covariates:
U ¼ U ðHD; MD; HD  MD; X h ; X w Þ;
where HD refers to height difference, MD to marital duration, HD × MD
to the interaction between the two, and Xh and Xw to sets of the
husband's and wife's characteristics, respectively.
We controlled for county fixed effects, county being the smallest ad-
ministrative unit available. This strategy is particularly apt since
Indonesia, with its 13,000 islands, is the world's largest archipelagic
state and one of the most spatially diverse nations on earth in its eco-
nomic development, resource endowments, population settlements, lo-
cation of economic activity, ecology, and ethnicity (Hill, Resosudarmo, &
Vidyattama, 2008). In addition, it is possible that some places have bet-
ter resources improving the residents' happiness (e.g., better infrastruc-
ture and lower crime rates). Controlling for county fixed effects allowed
us to examine the relationship between the independent variables and
happiness within, instead of between, counties. We applied cross-
section person weights with attrition correction to make estimations
representative and clustered standard errors at the county level to ac-
count for potential correlation within counties. For ease of interpreta-
tion, we reported the mean marginal effect of each independent
variable on being very happy. Considering these empirical strategies to-
gether with the nature of the sample, our results were conservative in
the sense that we did our best not to cause a false positive. We did not
extend the same exercise to husbands because although there is com-
pelling and consistent evidence of the female preference for male
height, the opposite is not the case. We mainly used commands of
oprobit and margins in STATA ver. 13.
 K. Sohn / Personality and Individual Differences 91 (2016) 14–21 17

Table 1 significance, but the coefficient on marital duration turned statistically

Descriptive statistics. significant.
Mean SD Range It could be that time-invariant differences across counties drove the
Continuous variable
results in Column 2. We thus added county fixed effects (Column 3) and
Height (cm) 151.1 5.4 125.5–184.6 found that the coefficient on height difference increased to some de-
Height difference (cm) 10.9 7.4 −36.6 to 47.1 gree. This increase suggests that county fixed effects did not drive the
Marital duration (year) 16.0 10.7 0–62 relationship between height difference and happiness. Although weakly
Age (year) 36.0 9.8 14–62
significant, its estimation precision also improved. Moreover, the mar-
Years of schooling 7.7 4.3 0–18
Husband's height (cm) 162.0 6.1 120–192.6 ginal effects of marital duration and age decreased, and the marginal ef-
Ln(husband's yearly earnings) 15.92 1.16 9.49–18.9 fect of education lost statistical significance. All these changes
demonstrate that time-invariant county characteristics exerted consid-
% erable effects on the relationship between the independent variables
Discrete variable and happiness. However, the relationship between perceived income
Very unhappy 0.27 ladder and happiness hardly changed, which is consistent with the
Unhappy 5.76
powerful influence of subjective income on happiness (Clark, Frijters,
Happy 86.25
Very happy 7.72 & Shields, 2008).
Unhealthy/somewhat unhealthy 16.06 It could be that the wife interpreted her husband's height as a mark-
Somewhat healthy 73.68 er of his resourcefulness. To check this, it was necessary to control for his
Very healthy 10.25 resourcefulness and see whether the coefficient on height difference
Perceived income ladder 1 7.20
Perceived income ladder 2 23.02
would considerably decrease. Albeit imperfect, we entered the natural
Perceived income ladder 3 51.87 log of the husband's earnings in the past year (along with a dummy in-
Perceived income ladder 4 16.33 dicating no earnings) and found a positive relationship between the
Perceived income ladder 5/6 1.58 husband's earnings and his wife's happiness (Column 4). A 100% in-
Rural residence 51.81
crease in the husband's earnings was related to a 2.1 percentage point
Urban residence 48.18
Ln(husband's earnings) ≠ 0 91.73 (27% relative to the mean) increase in his wife saying very happy. This
Ln(husband's earnings) = 0 8.27 strong relationship suggests that the husband's earnings had sufficient
influence on his wife's happiness. The coefficient on height difference
N 7850
indeed became smaller, but not considerably. If height difference had
acted only as a marker of his resourcefulness, the reduction would
4. Results have been more pronounced. It appears that his resourcefulness does
not much account for the relationship between height difference and
4.1. Descriptive statistics the wife's happiness.
That said, the overall results in the table indicate that height differ-
Table 1 presents descriptive statistics. For brevity, we explained only ence was somehow related to happiness, but its weak statistical signif-
variables closely related to the subsequent results. The mean height was icance implies that the relationship was not as hypothesized in the
151.1 cm; this short height reflects the low income level of the popula- current form. When we added the squared term of height difference,
tion and is an extension of the historical trend in height. The mean neither the linear nor squared term was statistically significant (not
height difference in couples was 10.9 cm. The mean marital duration shown). Furthermore, the considerable changes in the relationship be-
was 16.0 years, which makes sense considering the mean age of wives tween marital duration and happiness across columns suggest that mar-
(35.9 years). The mean age also suggests that the absolute majority ital duration was influenced by and influencing many factors related to
was not old; recall that 90% of the sample was under age 50. Like happiness. As a result, we paid more attention to marital duration.
other populations, most Indonesian wives were happy in general;
86.3% of the sample said happy, but there was enough variation in the 4.3. Interaction effect of height difference and marital duration on
variable because 7.7% said very happy, while 6.0% said unhappy or happiness
very unhappy. Fig. 1 presents a scatterplot of couples' heights. The plot
was oval-shaped, exhibiting a positive association with a correlation co- The results in the previous subsection motivated us to hypothesize
efficient of 0.18. that height difference is positively related to happiness beyond as a
marker of male resourcefulness, and the relationship weakens as the
4.2. Effect of height difference and marital duration on happiness sources of initial (un)happiness lose their influence over time. We test-
ed the hypothesis by entering the interaction of height difference and
In Column 1 of Table 2, we controlled for the independent variables marital duration into the specification. Table 3 lists the results, and
of interest (height difference and marital duration) along with age and each column of the table includes the same covariates as those in the
the wife's height to estimate their total effects on happiness; subse- corresponding column of Table 2, but we did not list them for brevity.
quently, we checked their robustness to specification changes. The mar- All coefficients on the three variables of interest were statistically signif-
ginal effect of height difference suggests that a 10 cm increase in height icant. While height difference and marital duration were positively re-
difference was related to a 3.92 percentage point increase in the proba- lated to happiness, their interaction was negatively related. When we
bility of saying very happy. Given that 7.72% of the sample said very added more covariates (Column 2), unlike those in Table 2, the marginal
happy, the size of the association (50.8%) was large.2 Other covariates effects of both height difference and marital duration remained statisti-
could mediate the relationship between height difference and happi- cally significant. When we added county fixed effects, just like before,
ness. We thus further controlled for years of schooling, self-reported the relationship between height difference and happiness increased,
health status, perceived income ladder, and urban (vs. rural) residence whereas that between marital duration and happiness decreased to
(Colum 2). The coefficient on height difference lost statistical some extent. Regardless, the main message continued to hold.
The results in Columns 1–3 are consistent with the weakening hy-
2
Since the coefficient on an independent variable decreases with the dependent vari-
pothesis, but they do not distinguish whether happiness generated by
able, one can roughly assess the size of the association by dividing the coefficient by the height difference resulted from the husband's resourcefulness or others.
mean of the dependent variable. To determine which was more likely, we added the natural log of the
18 K. Sohn / Personality and Individual Differences 91 (2016) 14–21

Table 2
Effect of height difference and marital duration on happiness: ordered probit.

1 2 3 4

Height difference (/100) 0.392 (0.151)⁎⁎⁎ 0.189 (0.126) 0.231 (0.118)⁎ 0.202 (0.116)⁎
Marital duration (/100) 0.148 (0.148) 0.432 (0.160)⁎⁎⁎ 0.311 (0.147)⁎⁎ 0.246 (0.143)⁎
Height (/100) 0.316 (0.224) 0.001 (0.202) 0.028 (0.195) b0.000 (0.190)
Age (/100) −0.389 (0.185)⁎⁎ −0.691 (0.178)⁎⁎⁎ −0.594 (0.171)⁎⁎⁎ −0.560 (0.167)⁎⁎⁎
Years of schooling (/100) 0.755 (0.254)⁎⁎⁎ 0.337 (0.245) 0.241 (0.241)
Somewhat healthy −0.016 (0.028) 0.003 (0.028) 0.001 (0.028)
Very healthy 0.009 (0.035) 0.035 (0.031) 0.038 (0.031)
Perceived income ladder 2 0.069 (0.037)⁎ 0.069 (0.034)⁎⁎ 0.064 (0.035)⁎
Perceived income ladder 3 0.108 (0.034)⁎⁎⁎ 0.105 (0.035)⁎⁎⁎ 0.092 (0.035)⁎⁎⁎
Perceived income ladder 4 0.174 (0.041)⁎⁎⁎ 0.173 (0.038)⁎⁎⁎ 0.156 (0.039)⁎⁎⁎
Perceived income ladder 5/6 0.229 (0.063)⁎⁎⁎ 0.209 (0.062)⁎⁎⁎ 0.191 (0.061)⁎⁎⁎
Urban residence 0.028 (0.024) 0.027 (0.031) 0.011 (0.030)
Ln(husband's earnings) 0.021 (0.007)⁎⁎⁎
Ln(husband's earnings) = 0 0.025 (0.046)

County fixed effects No No Yes Yes

Pseudo R squared 0.013 0.089 0.148 0.155

Notes: The sample size was 7850. We applied cross-section sample weights with attrition correction. Standard errors clustered at the county level are in parentheses.
⁎ p-Value b 0.10.
⁎⁎ p-Value b 0.05.
⁎⁎⁎ p-Value b 0.01.

husband's earnings in the previous year and a dummy indicating no
earnings (Column 4). The marginal effect of height difference decreased,
but the decrease was not large enough to assert that happiness owing to
height difference primarily resulted from his resourcefulness. Overall,
the wife was happier as her husband was taller, implying that his height
correlated with many sources of her happiness. More importantly, her
happiness associated with their height difference waned over time: ac-
cording to Column 4, the marginal effect of height difference on the wife
saying very happy completely dissipates by 18 (=0.00692/0.000386)
years of marital duration.
4.4. Robustness checks
Table 2 suggests that height difference and marital duration were
positively related to happiness, but the relationships were not simply
linear. Table 3 then demonstrates that marital duration mediated the re-
lationship between height difference and happiness. Only when this in-
teraction was taken into account, each of height difference and marital
duration was statistically significantly and positively related to happi-
ness. Incrementally adding more covariates did not change the sub-
stance of this main finding. To make the case more convincing, we
performed further robustness checks after controlling for the full set of
covariates (i.e., those in Column 4 of Table 2) and listed the results in
Table 4.
First, we checked if selection into marriage influenced the main re-
sults. We attempted to address this concern by exploiting the fact that
almost all Indonesian women had ever been married by age 30 (Sohn,
2015d, 2015e, in press-b). Roughly speaking, if every woman is married,
there is no selection into marriage by definition. When we analyzed this
subsample (Column 1), all coefficients on height difference, marital du-
ration, and their interaction were similar to those of the pooled sample.
Another concern was survival bias. Given that the life expectancy at
birth was 69 years for Indonesian men and 73 years for Indonesian
women in 2012, survival bias for women aged 49 and under should be
small. This subgroup produced similar results for the pooled sample
(Column 2). The main findings held even when we restricted the sam-
ple to ages 30–49, thereby alleviating both selection and survival bias
(Column 3).
Some may be concerned about the empirical model (i.e., ordered
probit model). We thus employed an ordered logit model and found
that this model change did not affect the main message (Column 4) in
any meaningful way. We also checked whether a cardinal (instead of or-
dinal) level of happiness affected the result by running OLS. Although
the magnitude of each coefficient was not comparable because the de-
pendent variable was cardinal now, the sign of each coefficient con-
firmed that the result was robust (Column 5). It was the same when
we distinguished very unhappy from unhappy and ran OLS (not
shown).
5. Discussion
This study was motivated by a casual observation that women value
male height in mating. We tested whether a woman was happier if the
height difference with her husband was greater and, if this was the case,
whether her happiness owing to the height difference diminished over
marital duration. We employed two datasets collected from a popula-
tion who probably enjoyed much happiness from height. The datasets
posed fewer concerns regarding bias resulting from selection in and
out of marriage and survival.
We found that height difference in a couple increased the wife's hap-
piness, which is consistent with the casual observation. At the same
time, this happiness diminished over time. Despite the decrease in her

Table 3
Interaction effect of height difference and marital duration on happiness: ordered probit.

1 2 3 4

Height difference (/100) 0.813 (0.295)⁎⁎⁎ 0.633 (0.249)⁎⁎ 0.728 (0.241)⁎⁎⁎ 0.692 (0.241)⁎⁎⁎
Marital duration (/100) 0.493 (0.222)⁎⁎ 0.809 (0.214)⁎⁎⁎ 0.728 (0.181)⁎⁎⁎ 0.658 (0.190)⁎⁎⁎
Height difference × duration (/1000) −0.331 (0.163)⁎⁎ −0.350 (0.156)⁎⁎ −0.392 (0.153)⁎⁎ −0.386 (0.156)⁎⁎

Pseudo R squared 0.018 0.095 0.156 0.163

Notes: We controlled for but not listed covariates identical to those in the corresponding column of Table 2. The sample size was 7850. We applied cross-section sample weights with
attrition correction. Standard errors clustered at the county level are in parentheses.
⁎⁎ p-Value b 0.05.
⁎⁎⁎ p-Value b 0.01.
 K. Sohn / Personality and Individual Differences 91 (2016) 14–21 19

Table 4
Robustness checks.

1 2 4 5

30 ≤ age ≤ 62 15 ≤ age ≤ 49 30 ≤ age ≤ 49 Ordered logit OLS

Height difference (/100) 0.681 (0.294)⁎⁎ 0.693 (0.241)⁎⁎⁎ 0.683 (0.296)⁎⁎ 0.698 (0.254)⁎⁎⁎ 1.168 (0.437)⁎⁎⁎
Marital duration (/100) 0.604 (0.242)⁎⁎ 0.660 (0.191)⁎⁎⁎ 0.606 (0.243)⁎⁎ 0.694 (0.205)⁎⁎⁎ 1.120 (0.336)⁎⁎⁎
Height difference × duration (/1000) −0.397 (0.190)⁎⁎ −0.387 (0.156)⁎⁎ −0.399 (0.191)⁎⁎ −0.407 (0.170)⁎⁎ −0.660 (0.277)⁎⁎

Covariates same as those in Col. 4 of Table 2 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
N 5414 7041 4606 7850 7850
Adjusted or pseudo R squared 0.219 0.163 0.220 0.160 0.180

Notes: We applied cross-section sample weights with attrition correction. Standard errors clustered at the county level are in parentheses.
⁎⁎ p-Value b 0.05.
⁎⁎⁎ p-Value b 0.01.

happiness, it is remarkable that the complete dissipation took about 18
years. Whatever the reasons for her happiness, her husband's height
and its correlates are long-lasting sources of her happiness. Evidence
suggests that some interventions and life events change happiness for
a certain period, but it is rare to see the changes last for such a long pe-
riod (Diener et al., 2006). It is no wonder that women want to marry tall
men. In fact, Indonesian women value male height and its correlates in
mating so much that the value of 1 cm height difference in a couple was
about 3% of the husband's earnings (Sohn, 2015e). When an extensive
set of covariates were taken into account, the value decreased to 1%,
but the size is not negligible.
We also tried to determine whether the husband's resourcefulness
played a substantial role in his wife's initial happiness and its waning.
We found a negative answer. One reason is that our measure of re-
sourcefulness was too crude. A more important reason is probably
that height is correlated with many characteristics of husbands and
wives, and they change over time. To make matters more complicated,
they change while interacting with each other. It is a limitation of this
study, but it is empirically impossible to disentangle them and to esti-
mate the influence of one source on her happiness. For example, she
was happy to be married with a tall and rich man. Over time, he may
lose interest in her; she then becomes less happy. Since she is less
happy, he is also less happy, further losing interest in her. Even in this
single case, we cannot empirically trace the origin of the vicious circle,
not to mention cut the circle and estimate its influence on her happi-
ness. This illustrates the reflective nature of marital happiness
(Powdthavee, 2009). A taller husband is happier, which in turn makes
his wife happier, which in turn makes her husband happier, and so on.
Manski (1993) recognized this reflection problem in the distribution
of behavior in a population and explained that it is possible to address
only under unlikely conditions. We look forward to seeing some re-
searchers tackle this problem, but we doubt that it is possible in the
near future.
We acknowledge another limitation, which is related to the reflec-
tion problem. We did not estimate any putative causality running
from height difference to happiness. This is possible if we could experi-
ment with marriages, which is out of the question, or have plausible in-
strumental variables (i.e., variables correlated with height difference
and, as later revealed, marital duration, but uncorrelated with happi-
ness). No one has found such variables. As far as happiness is concerned,
however, Easterlin (2003) presented evidence that reverse causality
was not a great concern for happiness in the marriage domain.
One may wonder whether our results are generalizeable to other
populations. Much evidence supports this possibility. For example,
most Indonesian women were happy (Table 1), which is the same as
for other populations (Diener & Diener, 1996). Indonesians exhibited
assortative mating by height (Fig. 1), which is also the same for other
populations (Silventoinen, 2003); its strength, measured by correlation
coefficient, is the same as that for the UK (Stulp, Buunk, Pollet, Nettle, &
Verhulst, 2013). Age was negatively related to happiness (Table 2),
which is, at first glance, inconsistent with the U-shaped relationship
(Blanchflower & Oswald, 2008). Upon scrutiny, however, our finding
is consistent because the trough of the U-shape usually took place in
the 50s and 90% of our sample was under 50. Thus the age range of
our sample corresponded to the left side of the U-shape. The positive re-
lationship between education and happiness is also consistent with the
literature (Michalos, 2008) and makes sense since education improves
material and nonmaterial resources for happiness (Sohn, 2013a).
Wives who perceived that they were richer than others were happier,
which is consistent with the importance of relative rather than objective
income (Clark et al., 2008). Pseudo R squared statistics in our results
were small, which agrees with the literature, too (Diener, 1994,
p. 115). The low R statistics supports the consistency of our results
and should not discount the results; the statistics only indicate that hap-
piness was determined by many factors other than our independent
variables. Our primary interest lay in marginal effects.
Future research with better data can improve upon this study. Recall
that our study population is unusually short, so they are probably more
sensitive to height. From this discussion, it would be of interest to check
whether tall populations (e.g., North Europeans) exhibit similar pat-
terns. Because women's preference for male height and resourcefulness
in mating seems to be cross-cultural, we believe that similar patterns
would be found, but to a smaller degree possibly because of satiation.
Additionally, if one insists that height has no value other than as a mark-
er of male resourcefulness, he can consider male resourcefulness in
more detail to check this possibility.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments
and suggestions.
Appendix A
A.1. Model specification
With an ordered probit model with linearization, our specification
becomes:
y ¼ α 1 HD þ α 2 MD þ α 3 HD  MD þ X h α h þ X w α w þ e;
and ejHD; MD; HD  MD; X h ; X w  Normal ð0; 1Þ;
where y⁎ is the latent variable of happiness, the α are (vectors of) coef-
ficients to be estimated, and e indicates the error term. Happiness levels
are defined as follows:
y = 1 if y⁎ ≤ μ1 for very unhappy or unhappy
y = 2 if μ1 b y⁎ ≤ μ2 for happy.
y = 3 if y⁎ N μ2 for very happy,
where μ1 and μ2 are unknown cutoff points, to be estimated by maxi-
mum likelihood, along with the α. Strictly speaking, the α are (vectors
20 K. Sohn / Personality and Individual Differences 91 (2016) 14–21
of) coefficients, but we also treated them as their marginal effects to
save notations.
A.2. Descriptions of variables
Age was self-reported in years. The variable of years of schooling was
constructed using two variables: the highest education level attended
and the highest grade completed at that school. We excluded a small
number of women whose highest education level attended was adult
education, open university, pesantren (Islamic school), or school for
the disabled. Self-reported health status was measured by an answer
to “In general, how is your health?” The respondent answered very
healthy, somewhat healthy, somewhat unhealthy, or unhealthy. Be-
cause few respondents said very unhealthy, we combined the categories
of very unhealthy and somewhat unhealthy. The perceived income lad-
der refers to the answer to “Please imagine a six-step ladder where on
the bottom (the first step) stand the poorest people, and on the highest
step (the sixth step) stand the richest people. On which step are you
today?” Because few respondents chose the sixth step, we combined
the fifth and sixth steps.
Husband's income refers to income earned during the year prior to
the interview. Paid employees answered “Approximately what was
your salary/wage during the last year (including the value of all bene-
fits)?” and the self-employed answered “Approximately how much
net profit did you gain last year, after taking out all your business ex-
penses?” We inflated incomes in IFLS4 by 1.3217 to match the money
value (i.e., take into account inflation rates) between the two survey
years, 2007 and 2012. Income for the month prior to the interview
was available, but job insecurity, economic shocks, and seasonality
greatly affect workers in Indonesia. Since this variable was intended to
capture the resourcefulness of the husband, a monthly time span was
too short a duration to effectively capture this aspect. Although income
during the past year is not the same as the husband's resourcefulness, it
was the closest available. As is often the case, we took the natural loga-
rithm of income, and we constructed a dummy indicating zero income.
References
Baten, J., & Blum, M. (2012). Growing tall but unequal: New findings and new background
evidence on anthropometric welfare in 156 countries, 1810–1989. Economic History
of Developing Regions, 27(Suppl. 1), S66–S85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20780389.
2012.657489.
Belot, M., & Fidrmuc, J. (2010). Anthropometry of love: Height and gender asymmetries in
interethnic marriages. Economics & Human Biology, 8(3), 361–372. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.ehb.2010.09.004.
Blanchflower, D. G., & Oswald, A. J. (2008). Is well-being U-shaped over the life cycle?
Social Science & Medicine, 66(8), 1733–1749. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.
2008.01.030.
Buss, D. M. (2003). The evolution of desire: Strategies of human mating. New York: Basic
Books.
Case, A., & Paxson, C. (2008). Stature and status: Height, ability, and labor market out-
comes. Journal of Political Economy, 116(3), 499–532.
Clark, A. E., Frijters, P., & Shields, M. A. (2008). Relative income, happiness, and utility: An
explanation for the Easterlin Paradox and other puzzles. Journal of Economic
Literature, 46(1), 95–144. http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/jel.46.1.95.
Courtiol, A., Raymond, M., Godelle, B., & Ferdy, J. B. (2010). Mate choice and human stat-
ure: Homogamy as a unified framework for understanding mating preferences.
Evolution, 64(8), 2189–2203. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2010.00985.x.
Diener, E. (1994). Assessing subjective well-being: Progress and opportunities. Social
Indicators Research, 31(2), 103–157.
Diener, E., & Diener, C. (1996). Most people are happy. Psychological Science, 7(3),
181–185.
Diener, E., Lucas, R. E., & Scollon, C. N. (2006). Beyond the hedonic treadmill: Revising the
adaptation theory of well-being. American Psychologist, 61(4), 305–314. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1037/0003-066X.61.4.305.
Easterlin, R. A. (2003). Explaining happiness. PNAS, 100(19), 11176–11183. http://dx.doi.
org/10.1073/pnas.1633144100.
Ferrer-i-Carbonell, A., & Frijters, P. (2004). How important is methodology for the esti-
mates of the determinants of happiness? Economic Journal, 114(497), 641–659.
Fink, B., Neave, N., Brewer, G., & Pawlowski, B. (2007). Variable preferences for sexual di-
morphism in stature (SDS): Further evidence for an adjustment in relation to own
height. Personality and Individual Differences, 43(8), 2249–2257. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.paid.2007.07.014.
Fu, H., & Goldman, N. (1996). Incorporating health into models of marriage choice: Demo-
graphic and sociological perspectives. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58(3),
740–758.
García, I., Molina, J. -A., & Navarro, M. (2010). The effects of education on spouses' satis-
faction in Europe. Applied Economics, 42(28), 3607–3618. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/
00036840802314572.
Gaulin, S. J. C., & Boster, J. S. (1992). Human marriage systems and sexual dimorphism in
stature. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 89(4), 467–475.
Groot, W., & Van Den Brink, H. M. (2002). Age and education differences in marriages and
their effects on life satisfaction. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3(2), 153–165.
Guven, C., Senik, C., & Stichnoth, H. (2012). You can't be happier than your wife. Happi-
ness gaps and divorce. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 82(1), 110–130.
Hacker, J. D. (2008). Economic, demographic, and anthropometric correlates of first mar-
riage in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century United States. Social Science History, 32(3),
307–345. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/01455532-2008-001.
Harper, B. (2000). Beauty, stature and the labour market: A British cohort study. Oxford
Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 62(S1), 771–800.
Herpin, N. (2005). Love, careers, and heights in France, 2001. Economics & Human
Biologys, 3(3), 420–449. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2005.04.004.
Hill, H., Resosudarmo, B. P., & Vidyattama, Y. (2008). Indonesia's changing economic ge-
ography. Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 44(3), 407–435.
Hitsch, G. J., Hortaçsu, A., & Ariely, D. (2010). What makes you click?—Mate preferences in
online dating. Quantitative Marketing and Economics, 8(4), 393–427. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1007/s11129-010-9088-6.
Kahneman, D., & Deaton, A. (2010). High income improves evaluation of life but not emo-
tional well-being. PNAS, 107(38), 16489–16493. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.
1011492107.
Kurzban, R., & Weeden, J. (2005). HurryDate: Mate preferences in action. Evolution and
Human Behavior, 26(3), 227–244. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2004.
08.012.
Lindeberg, S. (2010). Food and western disease: Health and nutrition from an evolutionary
perspective. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Lundborg, P., Nystedt, P., & Rooth, D. -O. (2014). Height and earnings: The role of cogni-
tive and noncognitive skills. Journal of Human Resources, 49(1), 141–166.
Manfredini, M., Breschi, M., Fornasin, A., & Seghieri, C. (2013). Height, socioeconomic sta-
tus and marriage in Italy around 1900. Economics & Human Biology, 11(4), 465–473.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2012.06.004.
Manski, C. F. (1993). Identification of endogenous social effects: The reflection problem.
Review of Economic Studies, 60(3), 531–542.
Michalos, A. C. (2008). Education, happiness and wellbeing. Social Indicators Research,
87(3), 347–366.
Murray, J. E. (2000). Marital protection and marital selection: Evidence from a historical-
prospective sample of American men. Demography, 37(4), 511–521.
Pawlowski, B. (2003). Variable preferences for sexual dimorphism in height as a strategy
for increasing the pool of potential partners in humans. Proceedings of the Royal
Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 270(1516), 709–712.
Pawlowski, B., & Koziel, S. (2002). The impact of traits offered in personal advertisements
on response rates. Evolution and Human Behavior, 23(2), 139–149.
Persico, N., Postlewaite, A., & Silverman, D. (2004). The effect of adolescent experience on
labor market outcomes: The case of height. Journal of Political Economy, 112(5),
1019–1053.
Pierce, C. A. (1996). Body height and romantic attraction: A meta-analytic test of the
male-taller norm. Social Behavior and Personality, 24(2), 143–149.
Powdthavee, N. (2009). I can't smile without you: Spousal correlation in life satisfaction.
Journal of Economic Psychology, 30(4), 675–689.
Silventoinen, K. (2003). Determinants of variation in adult body height. Journal of
Biosocial Science, 35(2), 263–285. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021932003002633.
Sohn, K. (2013a). Monetary and nonmonetary returns to education in Indonesia. The
Developing Economies, 51(1), 34–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/deve.12001.
Sohn, K. (2013b). Sources of happiness in Indonesia. Singapore Economic Review, 58(2),
1350014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/s0217590813500148.
Sohn, K. (2014). Age and size at maturity in Indonesian women: A norm of reaction? American
Journal of Human Biology, 26(5), 713–715. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.22571.
Sohn, K. (2015a). Height and happiness in a developing country. Journal of Happiness
Studies. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10902-014-9566-8 (in press-a).
Sohn, K. (2015b). The role of spousal income in the wife's happiness. Social Indicators
Research. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-0934-5 (in press-b).
Sohn, K. (2015c). Sexual stature dimorphism as an indicator of living standards? Annals of
Human Biology (in press-c).
Sohn, K. (2015d). The height premium in Indonesia. Economics and Human Biology, 16,
1–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2013.12.011.
Sohn, K. (2015e). The influence of birth season on height: Evidence from Indonesia.
American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 157(4), 659–665.
Sohn, K. (2015f). Is leg length a biomarker of early life conditions? Evidence from a histor-
ically short population. American Journal of Human Biology, 27(4), 538–545. http://dx.
doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.22682.
Sohn, K. (2015g). The male-taller norm: Lack of evidence from a developing country.
HOMO — Journal of Comparative Human Biology, 66(4), 369–378. http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.jchb.2015.02.006.
Sohn, K. (2015h). The value of male height in the marriage market. Economics & Human
Biology, 18, 110–124.
Sorokowski, P., & Butovskaya, M. L. (2012). Height preferences in humans may not be uni-
versal: Evidence from the Datoga people of Tanzania. Body Image, 9(4), 510–516.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2012.07.002.
Sorokowski, P., Sorokowska, A., Butovskaya, M., Stulp, G., Huanca, T., & Fink, B. (2015).
Body height preferences and actual dimorphism in stature between partners in two
 K. Sohn / Personality and Individual Differences 91 (2016) 14–21 21

non-western societies (Hadza and Tsimane'). Evolutionary Psychology, 13(2), Vaillant, N. G., & Wolff, F. -C. (2010). Positive and negative preferences in human mate se-
455–469. lection. Review of Economics of the Household, 9(2), 273–291. http://dx.doi.org/10.
Sorokowski, P., Sorokowska, A., Fink, B., & Mberira, M. (2011). Variable preferences for 1007/s11150-010-9089-y.
sexual dimorphism in stature (SDS) might not be universal: Data from a semi- Weatherhead, P. J., & Robertson, R. J. (1979). Offspring quality and the polygyny thresh-
nomad population (Himba) in Namibia. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43(1), old: “The sexy son hypothesis”. American Naturalist, 113(2), 201–208.
32–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022022110395140.
Stulp, G., Buunk, A. P., Pollet, T. V., Nettle, D., & Verhulst, S. (2013). Are human mating
preferences with respect to height reflected in actual pairings? PloS One, 8(1),
e54186. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0054186.