Height, weight, and entry earnings of female graduates in Taiwan

Highlight
- Height and earnings are positively correlated in a sample of female Taiwanese graduates.
- Height does not raise entry earnings via cognitive, non-cognitive, and physical capability.
- The most likely explanation for this positive correlation between height and earnings in these data is statistical discrimination.

Using a data set of Taiwanese female graduates in 2006, this study finds that height and earnings are positively correlated for full-time workers. However, it is not because tall individuals went to better colleges or received better grades (cognitive ability), not because they are gifted with superior physical strength or because they have participated in more extracurricular activities (non-cognitive ability), and not because they work in a highly paid occupation. We find that statistical discrimination (or perceptual bias) is most likely to play a role in determining the entry earnings of female graduates. In addition, we find that an estimator of the height premium for females is downward-biased if weight is omitted from the model.