As ESPN.com reports on a Wednesday US Open match in which 6-foot-9 John Isner defeated Xavier Malisse 6-3, 7-6 (5), 5-7, 7-6 (9) with help from his blistering serves, the article title reads “At what point is tall too tall?”. You may see how tall Isner is in this historical picture taken after the longest tennis match in history.
More interestingly, the article starts with:
Tall people, the studies insist, tend to be more successful than the rest of us.
According to a 2009 report in Australia’s Economic record, men who are 6 feet or taller make an average of nearly $1,000 more per year than those who are 2 inches shorter.
“Taller people are perceived to be more intelligent and powerful,” the study said.
This gets me curious about the relationship between “being tall” and “being successful”. Eventually I found this paper, “Does Size Matter in Australia?” by MICHAEL KORTT and ANDREW LEIGH, published in THE ECONOMIC RECORD. Using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey and applying regressions on log(wage) as response variable, the paper finds:
To put this into context, the average height of men in our sample is 178 cm (5 feet 10 inches). A male who is 183 cm (6 feet) tall is at the 75th percentile of the height distribution, and would be expected to earn a wage premium of 1.5 per cent. The average annual earnings of men in our sample is $63 200, so at the mean, another 5 cm of additional height is worth $948 per year.
Here is my question: How does this study based on survey data support “Taller people are perceived to be more intelligent and powerful“? I cannot see through.
Even on tennis court, as pointed out by the same ESPN article, height alone does not guarantee success.
[Update] John Isner lost in the third-round of U.S. Open against Philipp Kohlschrieber in another five-set match which ended at 2:26 a.m. Monday. An additional note, Isner left all four Grand Slam tournaments this year with five-set losses. The taller the player, the longer you play? :)