Height and well-being amongst older Europeans

This paper uses a cross‐country representative sample of Europeans over the
age of 50 to analyse whether individuals’ height is associated with higher or
lower levels of well‐being. Two outcomes are used: a measure of depression
symptoms reported by individuals and a categorical measure of life satisfaction.
It is shown that there is a concave relationship between height and symptoms
of depression. These results are sensitive to the inclusion of several sets of
controls reflecting demographics, human capital and health status. While
parsimonious models suggest that height is protective against depression, the
addition of controls, particularly related to health, suggests the reverse effect:
tall people are predicted to have slightly more symptoms of depression. Height
has no significant association with life satisfaction in models with controls for
health and human capital.