Weight, attractiveness, and gender when hiring: A field experiment in Spain

Catarina Goulão, Juan Antonio Lacomba, Francisco Lagos and Dan-Olof Rooth

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2024, vol. 218, issue C, 132-145

Abstract: Being overweight or obese is associated with lower employment and earnings, possibly arising from employer discrimination. A few studies have used field experiments to show that obese job applicants are, in fact, discriminated against in the hiring process. However, whether overweight job applicants also face employer discrimination is still an open question. To this end, we have designed a correspondence testing experiment in which fictitious applications are sent to real job openings across twelve different occupations in the Spanish labor market. We compare the callback rate for applications with a facial photo of a normal weight person to the one for applications with a photo of the same person manipulated into looking overweight.

Keywords: Obesity; Overweight; Gender; Attractiveness; Hiring; Correspondence testing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J64 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: Weight, attractiveness, and gender when hiring: A field experiment in Spain (2024)
Working Paper: Weight, Attractiveness, and Gender when Hiring. A Field Experiment in Spain (2023)
Working Paper: Weight, Attractiveness, and Gender When Hiring: A Field Experiment in Spain (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:218:y:2024:i:c:p:132-145

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.11.028

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