UCD CENTRE FOR ECONOMIC RESEARCH

WORKING PAPER SERIES

2010

Height and well-being amongst older Europeans

Kevin Denny, University College Dublin

WP10/36

October 2010

UCD SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

BELFIELD DUBLIN 4

HeightandwellbeingamongstolderEuropeans

KevinDenny

SchoolofEconomics

UniversityCollegeDublinIreland

October20th2010

Thispaperusesacrosscountry representative sampleofEuropeansover the

ageof50 to analysewhether individualsheight is associatedwithhigheror

lower levelsofwellbeing.Twooutcomesareused:ameasureofdepression

symptomsreportedbyindividualsandacategoricalmeasureoflifesatisfaction.

It isshownthatthere isaconcaverelationshipbetweenheightandsymptoms

of depression. These results are sensitive to the inclusion of several sets of

controls reflecting demographics, human capital and health status. While

parsimoniousmodelssuggestthatheight isprotectiveagainstdepression,the

additionofcontrols,particularlyrelatedtohealth,suggeststhereverseeffect:

tallpeoplearepredictedtohaveslightlymoresymptomsofdepression.Height

hasnosignificantassociationwith lifesatisfaction inmodelswithcontrols for

healthandhumancapital.

Keywords:height,depression,wellbeing,lifesatisfaction,health

Kevin.denny@ucd.ie Address: School of Economics, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland (visitingEconomicsDepartment,UniversityofKentucky2010).Theauthor isalsoaffiliatedtotheUCDGeary InstituteandtheInstituteforFiscalStudies,London.

1

1.Introduction

The relationship between height and labourmarket outcomes such as earnings has been

extensivelystudiedbyeconomistsparticularlysince thepublicationofPersicoetal (2004).

Understandingthecauseofthepremiumhasproved lessstraightforward.CaseandPaxson

(2008)attribute it to theassociationbetweenheightandcognitiveability.The idea is that

low height is a marker for underdevelopment generally reflecting, perhaps, early

deprivation.Cognitiveunderdevelopment,theargumentgoes, isoneaspectofthisunder

development.Therehasbeenmuch lessanalysisofwhetherheight isassociatedwithwell

beinggenerally.Thetwoissuesareclearlyrelatedsinceonewouldexpectaheightearnings

premium to translate intohigher levelsofwellbeing. Indeedcognitiveabilitycouldhavea

direct positive independent of any effect via earnings. Lundborg et al (2009) by contrast

presentevidencethatthepremiumisprimarilyduetotheassociationbetweenheightanda

personsphysicalcapacity.Itisworthremembering,asBattyetal(2009)pointout,thatwhile

early lifeconditions(particularly inextremis)maywell influenceheight,there isalsoavery

stronghereditarycomponent.

Amongst health researchers, a number of studies have analysedwhether height predicts

mentalhealth.ForexampleStack&Wasserman(1996)foundthatshorterpeopleweremore

likely to attempt suicidewhile Bjerkeset et al (2008)who find no associationwith either

depression or suicidality. However, some of these studies in this area are primarily

concerned with those who are abnormally short (particularly children) arising from

conditionssuchasgrowthhormonedeficiencyandare lessconcernedwithvariation inthe

normalrange,seeLaw(1987)forareview.

Averyuseful recentoverviewof thepossiblepathwaysbetweenheightandbothphysical

andmentalhealthisprovidedbyBattyetal(2009).Theynotethattherearebothcostsand

benefits to height sowhile chronic heart disease ismore common amongst short people

certaincancersareactuallylesscommon.Thissuggeststhatoneshouldbealerttopossible

nonlinearitieswhen looking at the effect onwellbeing since, conceivably, the effect of

height, to the extent that it is a health effect,may be nonmonotonic. Nonmonotonic

associationswith regard to height have been found in some studies. For exampleNettle

2

(2002)looksatthereproductivesuccessofacohortofBritishmalesandfindsthatwhiletall

menaremore likely tohavea long termpartnerand less likely tobe childless than short

men, extremely tallmen have an excess of health problems and aremore likely to be

childless.AnanalogouspatternisfoundbyHbler(2009)whofindsanonmonotonicheight

earnings premium for males with short and very tall men earnings less than those in

between.Heineck(2008)findsasimilarnonmonotonicearningsheightrelationship.

Therehavebeenseveralrecentcontributionstotheeconomics literatureonthesubjectof

height andwellbeing. The paper byDeaton&Arora (2009) uses a largeUS dataset, the

GallupHealthways Wellbeing index. The outcome studied is the Cantril selfanchoring

striving scale (Cantril (1965)) inwhich individuals identifywhere they are on a notional

ladderwiththetop(11th)rungcorrespondingtothebestpossiblelifeandthebottomrung

correspondingtotheworstpossible life.Theyfindthatheight is indeedassociatedwitha

higher place in this index and,moreover that it is almost entirely due to the association

betweenheightandbothearningsandeducation.ThestudybyRees,SabiaandArgys(2009)

foundinasampleofUSadolescentstheexistenceofasmallheightpremium,intheformof

fewersymptomsofdepression.Thiswaspresentonlyforolderfemales(ages1719)butall

males (ages1219).They findnoeffectson selfesteem.Thispaperhas themeritofusing

longitudinal datawhich allows it control for fixed effects though this turns out not to be

critical.

Thispaperaddstothesefindingsanddiffersfromtheminseveralkeyrespects.Itusesalarge

representative sample from12Europeancountrieswhich isdrawn from thepopulationof

over50yearolds.Itconsidersasoutcomesbothameasureoflifesatisfactionandameasure

ofdepressionsymptoms.Italsoallowsfortherelationshipwithheighttobenonlinear.

2.Data

The dataset used is SHARE: the Survey of Ageing,Health and Retirement in Europe. This

collectsdatafromnationallyrepresentativesamplesofthenoninstitutionalpopulationaged

50 years and older. The primary sampling unit is a household and all individuals in the

householdwhoare inthetargetagecategoryare interviewed.Thispaperusedrelease2of

3

thedatasetwhich includes12countrieswhichwascollectedbetween2004and2006.See

BoerschSupan&Juerges(2005)fordetailsofthemethodologybehindthedataset.

EuroD is a 12 item scale developed by the EURODEP Consortium (Prince et al 1999,

Copeland1999).Itisprimarilybasedonthreeparentinstruments:theGeriatricMentalState

AGECAT(Copeland,Dewey,&GriffithJones,1986),SHORTCARE(Gurland,Golden,Teresi,&

Challop,1984),andCESD (Radloff,1977).The latter instrument isused in theRees,Sabia

andArgys(2009)paperdiscussedabove.TheEuroDscalewascreatedtoprovideasimple

measure of the extent of depressive symptoms that could be used for comparing across

European countries. The questions refer to the presence of these symptoms in the last

month.Valuesofthescaleequaltothreeorhigheraretakenasadepressioncasethat is

indicatingthatsuchanindividualisatriskofdepression.Hencethescalecannotbeusedto

indicatewhetheran individual isclinicallydepressedornotbut forconvenience, itwillbe

sometimes referred tohereas depression. Forotheranalysesof thedepressiondata in

SHAREseeCastroCostaetal(2007)andDenny(2009).Thequestiononsatisfactionisbased

onresponsestothequestionHowsatisfiedareyouwithyourlifeingeneral?andiscoded

from0(lowest)to3(highest).

Themarginaldistributions for these twovariables for thesampleused in thedataanalysis

areshowninFigures1and2respectively.Thejointdistributionofthetwooutcomesisgiven

inTable1b (where theEuroD scalehasbeen simplified forconvenience).There isaclear

associationbetween the two (thenullof independence is comfortably rejected,p=.0000).

Nonetheless there are individualswith relativelyhighdepression scoreswho reportbeing

very satisfiedwith their life. Since the two refer todifferentperiods this isbynomeans

inconsistentbut it serves to remindone thatone shouldnotassume that findings forone

outcomewillberepeatedfortheother.Theindependentvariableofinterestisthepersons

selfreportedheightmeasured incentimetres. Kerneldensityestimatesforthedistribution

ofheight formalesand femalesareshown inFigure3.There isevidenceofbimodality for

bothsexeswhichseemstoreflectdigitalpreferencewith largenumbersreportingvalues

at160,165,168and170cmrelativetoadjacentvalues.

Allmodelscontainasetofcountrydummyvariables(notshowninthetables)andadummy

variable forbeing female.Controls are classified into three groups,demographics,human

4

capitalandhealth.Demographiccontrolsconsistofage(inyears)andasetofdummiesfor

marital status.Human capital controls consistsof income (in/10000),yearsofeducation

andameasureofverbalability.Sinceaconsiderableproportionofthesampleisreportedto

havezeroincome,adummyforzeroincomeisincluded.Thehealthcontrolsconsistsofthe

numberofchronicdiseaseseverexperienced,ameasureofgripstrength,andtwomeasures

of theirphysical infirmity.One iswhether they report limitationsof theiractivitiesby the

IADLcriterion (instrumentalactivitiesofdaily living).Respondentswereaskedaboutseven

activitiesandavariable codedone if they report limitationswithoneormoreof these is

used.Thesecondmeasure,labelledGALI,isabinaryvariableindicatingwhethertheyhave

feltlimitedintheirdailyactivitiesbasedonthequestionForthepastsixmonthsatleast,to

whatextenthaveyoubeen limitedbecauseofahealthproblem inactivitiespeopleusually

do?

Missingvaluesare treatedbycasewisedeletion.Descripti