Despite all the bad in the world, I have to give humans some credit for making a lot of positive progress. For example, we’ve made great strides (and of course have more to go) in the civil rights movement. It’s now illegal to discriminate in the employment process based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, and genetic information.
But one of those protected classes is NOT height. With the exception of a few jurisdictions, it’s perfectly legal to not hire some based on their height. “Height discrimination” isn’t a very popular cause these days, but I think it deserves a more serious look. Just like race, someone can’t choose their height. And in a country where we declared that all [people] are created equal, we shouldn’t be penalizing anyone for something about their creation.
I have extreme luxury of being tall. I’m 6’4” (6’7” on Tinder). As generally happens with discrimination, no one blatantly walks up to me and says “hey you’re tall, here’s money”. But I do think I’ve benefitted from invisible tailwinds throughout my career. When I have walked into a business meeting, or met prospective clients at a conference, did they form a different impression of me because of my height? If I had walked into those meetings a foot shorter, would they have gone the same way? It’s impossible to know, but this research suggests there’s a pretty clear financial advantage to being tall.
The research used that I referenced in this post held equal non-height factors like gender, age, years of schooling, and location and still found all else equal, taller people make more money. Since we haven’t even take the obvious step of making height a protected class, it could legally be used to make hiring and promotion decisions.
Do you think taller people make more money? Do you think that’s fair? Have you ever experienced height discrimination?
As always, reminding you to build wealth by following the two PFC rules: 1.) Live below your means and 2.) Invest early and often.
-Jeremy
