5′1″ vs 5′7″ Height Difference

From feet to centimeters

Five feet one inch is 61 inches, and five feet seven is 67. With the inch defined as exactly 25.4 mm, the definition NIST traces to the 1959 international yard agreement, that gives 154.94 cm and 170.18 cm. The gap is 6 inches, or 15.24 cm. Expressed as a ratio, the taller person is 9.8% taller (67 ÷ 61 ≈ 1.098), and the shorter person stands at 91% of the taller person's height.

For each height on its own, see 5′1″ in cm and 5′7″ in cm.

Two people at matching percentiles

The most interesting feature of this pair is how evenly matched it is relative to each sex's distribution. In the US NHANES survey for August 2021 to August 2023, which measured participants on a wall-mounted stadiometer, women aged 20 and older have a 15th percentile of 60.6 inches and a 25th percentile of 61.6 inches. A 5′1″ woman lands between them, around the 19th percentile. For men, the 25th percentile is 66.9 inches and the median 69.0 inches, so 5′7″ falls at roughly the 26th percentile.

In plain terms, each person is a little shorter than about three-quarters to four-fifths of their own sex. Neither is unusual, and they sit at a similar distance below the middle. That symmetry is why the gap between them, 15.24 cm, is close to the gap between the average American man (175.1 cm) and average woman (161.2 cm), which NHANES puts at 13.9 cm. Shift both people down the scale by the same percentile and the difference between them barely changes.

The symmetry holds across generations, too. Among adults aged 20 to 29, the NHANES table puts the women's 15th percentile at 61.4 inches and the men's 25th percentile at 67.5 inches, so a young 5′1″ woman and a young 5′7″ man are both a little shorter relative to their peers than the all-ages figures suggest. Among adults aged 70 to 79, the women's median is 62.2 inches and the men's 68.0 inches, which moves both people up toward the 30th to 40th percentile range. In every age band, though, the two land at broadly similar positions within their own sex.

Assortative mating, measured

Do similar people actually end up together? The best large-sample estimate comes from Gert Stulp and colleagues, who analyzed 12,502 couples in the UK Millennium Cohort Study for a 2013 PLOS ONE paper. Partners' heights were positively correlated, at r = 0.18. Each extra centimeter of a woman's height went with about 0.19 cm of extra height in her partner, and each extra centimeter of a man's height with about 0.17 cm more in his partner.

That is a weak correlation. It means that a shorter-than-average woman is slightly more likely than chance to be with a shorter-than-average man, but plenty of 5′1″ women have much taller partners and plenty of 5′7″ men have taller partners too. The researchers showed that a simple rule, such as "the man must be taller", would by itself generate a correlation of about 0.34, so the observed 0.18 is consistent with people following preferences only loosely.

A gap right in the middle of the range

The 15.24 cm difference is almost exactly the average couple gap in the UK data, where the mean was 14.11 cm with a standard deviation of 9.25 cm. Stulp's team found that couples with differences between 5 and 20 cm were more common than random pairing would predict, and that the 15 to 20 cm bin in particular had a small but significant excess of real couples over simulated ones. At just over 15 cm, this pair is in that favored range.

The site's own estimate from US height distributions points the same way. If American women and men were paired at random, about 45% of couples would have the man at least 15.24 cm taller, and nearly half of all couples in which he is taller at all would have a gap at least this large.

Between his ideal and hers

Stated preferences are less symmetrical than real couples. In a 2013 study in Personality and Individual Differences titled "Women want taller men more than men want shorter women", Stulp, Abraham Buunk and Thomas Pollet found that among 650 students, women were most satisfied with partners about 21 cm taller than themselves, while men were most satisfied with partners about 8 cm shorter. A 6-inch pair at 15.24 cm sits almost exactly halfway between those two peaks, which may be part of why gaps of this size are so common in practice: it is a compromise that falls within both sexes' comfort zones.

The same pair in other parts of the world

The NCD Risk Factor Collaboration's estimates for people born in 1996, based on measured heights from more than 18.6 million people in 200 countries, show where this pairing would be close to the national averages:

A 5′7″ man is almost exactly the average man in Japan and slightly above the average man in Mexico. A 5′1″ woman matches the averages in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Our World in Data, which presents the same NCD-RisC series, puts the global averages for that cohort at about 171 cm for men and 159 cm for women, a gap of around 12 cm and a ratio of roughly 1.07. This pair's ratio of 1.098 is a bit more dimorphic than the global average, but the absolute heights are near the world's middle.

A near match in Bolivia

A 2015 study in Evolutionary Psychology by Piotr Sorokowski and colleagues measured the Tsimane', farmer-foragers in the Bolivian Amazon. Men averaged about 167 cm and women about 155 cm, a near-perfect description of a 5′1″ woman and a man a little under 5′6″. Among 76 partnered individuals, the average height ratio within couples was 1.07, and only three couples had a taller wife. Interestingly, Tsimane' women's stated preferences were spread almost evenly across the silhouette options shown to them, while men leaned toward larger gaps; neither group's preferences predicted the height of their actual partner, which the authors linked in part to strong parental influence on marriage.

Walking at the same pace

A 6-inch difference in height comes with a difference in leg length, and couples sometimes notice it on long walks. Research suggests that it is usually the taller partner who adjusts. In a 2013 PLOS ONE study, Janelle Wagnild and Cara Wall-Scheffler measured the walking speeds of 11 couples aged 18 to 29 on a fixed course. Walking alone, the men averaged 1.53 m/s and the women 1.44 m/s. Walking with their partner, the men slowed to 1.44 m/s, matching the women; holding hands, they slowed slightly further, to 1.43 m/s. The women's speeds hardly changed in any condition.

The study did not analyze height, and its sample was small. But it shows that matching pace is something partners do readily. For a pair only 15 cm apart, the adjustment is likely to be modest.

Eye level, hugs and photos

Using the standard body-proportion model, a 5′7″ person's eyes sit at about 159 cm, the chin at roughly 148 cm and the shoulders near 139 cm. A 5′1″ head reaches 154.9 cm, around the taller person's mouth. Their eye lines differ by about 14 cm.

At conversation distance the difference is slight. In photos the heads sit at clearly different levels but close enough that a small tilt, or a 2-inch heel on the shorter partner, brings them near level. A heel of that size would reduce the gap to about 4 inches.

Why distance matters more than inches

How large a height difference feels depends heavily on how close two people stand, and anthropologist Edward T. Hall's classic work on proxemics, set out in his 1966 book The Hidden Dimension, gives a useful vocabulary for that. Hall divided everyday distances into zones:

The gaze angles are simple geometry from the 14 cm eye-level difference. At social distances, such as standing across a room or a desk, a 6-inch difference is barely visible in the angle of someone's head. In the personal zone, where friends and partners usually talk, it shows as a slight upward tilt. Only in the intimate zone, during a hug or slow dance, does the shorter person need to look up sharply. That is one reason couples with modest gaps like this often say they rarely think about it, while photos taken shoulder to shoulder make the difference look larger than it feels in daily life.

Sizing and furniture

A 5′1″ woman is squarely in petite territory. US petite sizing is usually aimed at women under 5′4″, and the miss petite size table assumes heights from 5′1″ to 5′3″, with 5′1″ at the bottom of the range. The junior petite table also assumes 5′1″. A 5′7″ man generally fits standard men's sizes, often with shorter inseams.

Because both partners are below average for their sex, household fixtures designed around average adults may be slightly high for both. Top shelves and high cabinets tend to be the main shared nuisance, rather than the desk-height and seat-height adjustments that bigger height gaps demand.

People listed at these heights

Celebrity heights are approximate and sometimes disputed. On this site, Jenna Ortega and Lady Gaga are listed at about 155 cm, essentially 5′1″, while Lionel Messi is listed at 169 cm and Tom Cruise at 170 cm, around 5′7″.

Related comparisons

Taking an inch off the shorter side gives 5′0″ vs 5′7″, a 7-inch gap. Keeping a 6-inch gap but moving both people up the scale gives 5′4″ vs 5′10″, a couple closer to the US averages. For any other combination, the height difference calculator works with feet and inches or centimeters.