The obesity pay gap is worse than previously thought

From The Economist Magazine. I've done alot of posts on how better looking people earn more and benefit in other ways (links below). Excerpts:

"Our number-crunching suggests that, in fact, being obese hurts the earnings of both women and men.

The data we analysed cover men and women aged between 25 and 54 and in full-time employment. At an aggregate level, it is true that men’s BMIs are unrelated to their wages. But that changes for men with university degrees. For them, obesity is associated with a wage penalty of nearly 8%, even after accounting for the separate effects of age, race, graduate education and marital status. When we re-ran our analysis, using a different dataset that covers nearly 90,000 people, from the Department of Health and Human Services, we got similar results.

The conclusion—that well-educated workers in particular are penalised for their weight—holds for both sexes (see chart 1). Moreover, the higher your level of education, the greater the penalty. We found that obese men with a bachelor’s degree earn 5% less than their thinner colleagues, while those with a graduate degree earn 14% less. Obese women, it is true, still have it worse: for them, the equivalent figures are 12% and 19%, respectively.

The data we analysed cover men and women aged between 25 and 54 and in full-time employment. At an aggregate level, it is true that men’s BMIs are unrelated to their wages. But that changes for men with university degrees. For them, obesity is associated with a wage penalty of nearly 8%, even after accounting for the separate effects of age, race, graduate education and marital status. When we re-ran our analysis, using a different dataset that covers nearly 90,000 people, from the Department of Health and Human Services, we got similar results.

The conclusion—that well-educated workers in particular are penalised for their weight—holds for both sexes (see chart 1). Moreover, the higher your level of education, the greater the penalty. We found that obese men with a bachelor’s degree earn 5% less than their thinner colleagues, while those with a graduate degree earn 14% less. Obese women, it is true, still have it worse: for them, the equivalent figures are 12% and 19%, respectively."

Related posts:

The Moral Hazards of Being Beautiful: Research shows that attractive people tend to receive unearned esteem from others and cultivate self-serving beliefs (2023)

Attractiveness is associated with the belief that economic success is dependent on individual effort, rather than external circumstances (2022)

Do looks matter for an academic career in economics? (2021)

Higher economic status can offset lower physical attractiveness in men much more easily than in women (2017) 

The Unfairness of Unattractiveness (2016)

Better Looking Real Estate Agents Make More Money (2014)
   
Do Good Looking People Get Better Loan Terms? (2014)
 
Do Looks Help In The Job Market?  (2012)
 
From The Life Is Not Fair Category: Better Looking, Tall, Thin People Make More Money (2011)

Do looks matter? (2011)