Uncovering the roots of obesity-based wage discrimination: The role of job characteristics

Juan Dolado, Luigi Minale and Airam Guerra

Labour Economics, 2023, vol. 85, issue C

Abstract: This paper investigates the roots of potential labor-market discrimination underlying the negative correlation between obesity and hourly wages. Using a panel dataset of white individuals drawn from the U.S. 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97), we test whether residual wage gaps could be attributed to prejudice (taste-based discrimination) and/or statistical discrimination. To this end, we examine how these two types of discrimination hinge on a wide range of obese individuals’ specific job and occupational characteristics (drawn from the O*Net Online database). In particular, our analysis sheds light on whether discrimination originates from clients’ attitudes, fellow workers or employers. Our findings are consistent with taste-based discrimination against obese females, especially as they become older, in jobs requiring frequent communication with either clients or employers. However, the evidence on this issue is weaker for males. We conjecture that these differences may originate from both an over-representation of males among employers and different image concerns against people of the same gender.

Keywords: Obesity; Wages; Discrimination; Job characteristics; NLSY97; O*net online (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J15 J24 J31 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Related works:
Working Paper: Uncovering the Roots of Obesity- Based Wage Discrimination: The Role of Job Characteristics (2023)
Working Paper: Uncovering the Roots of Obesity-based Wage Discrimination: The Role of Job Characteristics (2021)
Working Paper: Uncovering the Roots of Obesity-Based Wage Discrimination: The Role of Job Characteristics (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:85:y:2023:i:c:s0927537123001008

DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2023.102425

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