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Anthropometry and socioeconomics in
the couple: evidence from the PSID *
Sonia Oreffice and Climent Quintana-Domeque **
Abstract
We analyze empirically the marriage-market aspects of body size,
weight, and height in the United States using data from the Panel
Study of Income Dynamics on anthropometric characteristics of both
spouses. We find evidence of positive sorting in spouses’ BMI, in their
weight, and in their height. Within couples, gender-asymmetric tradeoffs
arise not only between physical and socio-economic attributes,
but also between anthropometric attributes, with significant penalties
for fatter women and shorter men. A wife’s obesity (body size or
weight) measures are negatively correlated with her husband’s
income, education, and height, controlling for his weight (or body
size) and her height, along with spouses’ demographic and socioeconomic
characteristics. Conversely, heavier husbands are not
penalized by matching with poorer or less educated wives, but only
with shorter ones. Height is valued in the market mainly for men,
with shorter men matched with heavier and less educated wives.
Keywords: weight, height, BMI, marriage market.
JEL Classification: D1, I1, J1.
*
We acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and
Innovation (ECO 2008-05721/ECON). We thank Carlos Bozzoli, Pierre-André
Chiappori, Lola Collado, Lídia Farré, Laura Hospido, Juan Mora, Chiara Orsini and
four anonymous referees for comments and suggestions. A previous version of this
paper circulated as FEDEA working paper # 2009-22. The usual disclaimers apply.
**
S. Oreffice: Universitat d’Alacant and IZA. C. Quintana-Domeque: Universitat
d’Alacant. Contact author: climent@ua.es
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