Does Baby Height Predict Adult Income?
Feb. 22, 2005 — An infant boy’s growth during his first year of life may signal his economic growth during adulthood. Baby boys who are taller than their peers between birth and their first birthday grow up to earn more money as adults, say researchers from the U.K. and Finland. But they say their study merely shows an association between infant height and adult income; it does not say that short people are destined to become economic failures. It may sound outrageous to peer into a baby’s cradle and sum up their earning potential decades down the road. What could a couple of extra inches of height — one way or the other — have to do with adult income? More than you might think, say University of Southampton professor David Barker and colleagues. They studied baby height and adult income in 4,630 men born in Helsinki, Finland, from 1934 to 1944. “We found that boys who were taller at any age between birth and 12 years had higher incomes in 1990,” write the researchers in the March i
