Changes Over Time in the Relationship of Obesity to Education Accumulation

Tim Classen ()
Additional contact information
Tim Classen: Loyola University Chicago

Eastern Economic Journal, 2017, vol. 43, issue 3, No 7, 496-519

Abstract: Abstract This research examines whether the influence of obesity in late adolescence on education accumulation has changed over time as the rate of obesity has increased substantially over the previous three decades. Previous studies have indicated that obesity has asymmetric consequences between genders on socioeconomic outcomes such as income, wealth, and education. The results in this project allow for consideration of the influence of obesity on education accumulation as the proportion of adolescent peers with weight problems varies substantially. I utilize data from the NLSY79 and the children of women in the NLSY79 to estimate the relationships of interest. I find that obese and overweight females in both generations are less likely to attend college than their peers with BMI levels in the recommended range. As well, obese females are less likely to graduate high school, with a larger effect in the earlier generation when obesity was relatively rare. I do not find any significant relationship between weight status and college attendance or high school graduation for males. Such asymmetric results for human capital investments across genders are consistent with previous evidence that obese women face a wage penalty relative to their non-obese peers, while obese males do not.

Keywords: human capital; obesity; education; I12; I21; J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41302-016-0079-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:easeco:v:43:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1057_s41302-016-0079-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/41302

DOI: 10.1057/s41302-016-0079-5

Access Statistics for this article

Eastern Economic Journal is currently edited by Allan Zebedee and Cynthia Bansak

More articles in Eastern Economic Journal from Palgrave Macmillan, Eastern Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().