Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP7146
Authors: Michle Belot; Jan Fidrmuc
Abstract: Both in the UK and in the US, we observe puzzling gender asymmetries in the propensity to outmarry: Black men are substantially 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 explain a large proportion of 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 Health Survey for England and the Millenium Cohort Study, which contains valuable and unique information on heights of married couples.
Keywords: gender; height; intermarriage
JEL Codes: J12; J15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Height distributions among ethnic groups (J15) | Marriage market dynamics (J12) |
| Taller average height of black men (J79) | Intermarriage rates of black men with white women (J79) |
| Intermarriage rates of black men with white women (J79) | Intermarriage rates of black women with white men (J79) |
| Shorter average height of Chinese men (N95) | Intermarriage rates of Chinese men with white women (J79) |
| Intermarriage rates of Chinese men with white women (J79) | Intermarriage rates of Chinese women with white men (J15) |