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Body Size, Skills, and Income: Evidence From 150,000 Teenage Siblings

Petter Lundborg, Paul Nystedt (paul.nystedt@jibs.hj.se) and Dan-Olof Rooth

Demography, 2014, vol. 51, issue 5, 1573-1596

Abstract: We provide new evidence on the long-run labor market penalty of teenage overweight and obesity using unique and large-scale data on 150,000 male siblings from the Swedish military enlistment. Our empirical analysis provides four important results. First, we provide the first evidence of a large adult male labor market penalty for being overweight or obese as a teenager. Second, we replicate this result using data from the United States and the United Kingdom. Third, we note a strikingly strong within-family relationship between body size and cognitive skills/noncognitive skills. Fourth, a large part of the estimated body-size penalty reflects lower skill acquisition among overweight and obese teenagers. Taken together, these results reinforce the importance of policy combating early-life obesity in order to reduce healthcare expenditures as well as poverty and inequalities later in life. Copyright Population Association of America 2014

Keywords: Obesity; Overweight; Discrimination; Earnings; Skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

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DOI: 10.1007/s13524-014-0325-6

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