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Published VersionCC BY V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
Discrimination based on employer preferences: The height premium in China
Journal of Policy Modeling, Vol.47(2), pp.276-297
2025
Appears in UniSC Supported Open Access Outputs
Abstract
This paper examines the policy issue of height-based discrimination in China's labour market using a comprehensive nationwide survey dataset spanning from 1989 to 2015. Employing a theoretical framework that considers statistical discrimination resulting from employer preferences for cognitive and non-cognitive skills associated with productivity, the research investigates the impact of height on hourly wages. The empirical analysis reveals a height premium of approximately 5.97 % per ten-centimetre increase and identifies educational attainment as a factor explaining about one-third of this premium. Furthermore, the study finds that female employees with higher education levels experience greater height premiums. Interestingly, the height premium is smaller in the public sector, senior technical occupations, in regions with a collectivist culture that centres around traditional rice-growing practices, and during the earlier transition period (before 2000) when cognitive skills held more significance. These findings suggest the widespread occurrence of height-based statistical discrimination in China’s labour market and underscore the necessity for the policy interventions of health care and nutrition intake in early life and the later effective anti-discrimination regulations in labour market.
Details
- Title
- Discrimination based on employer preferences: The height premium in China
- Authors
- Fei Peng - Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and FinanceLili Kang - Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and FinanceXiaocong Yang - Guangzhou UniversitySajid Anwar (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Business and Creative Industries
- Publication details
- Journal of Policy Modeling, Vol.47(2), pp.276-297
- Publisher
- Elsevier Inc.
- Date published
- 2025
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jpolmod.2024.10.002
- ISSN
- 1873-8060; 0161-8938
- Copyright note
- © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The Society for Policy Modeling. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
- Organisation Unit
- School of Business and Creative Industries; Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991103723302621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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