Earnings and overweight in Russia: Men and women

Anastasiia Deeva
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Anastasiia Deeva: HSE University, Moscow, Russian Federation

Applied Econometrics, 2025, vol. 80, 47-67

Abstract: This paper investigates the influence of Body-Mass-Index (BMI) on the earnings of men and women. The aim is to identify weight–wage discrimination in the Russian labour market, which results in overweight and obese people earning significantly less than normal-weight workers. The study is performed on a panel dataset from a Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS–HSE) collected by HSE University on individuals from 2013 to 2023 and Rosstat regional-level data for the corresponding years. Based on the results, it can be concluded that being overweight leads to a decrease in the wages of female employees, but it does not seem to affect the wages of male employees. The industry of occupation plays a role in determining the presence and degree of wage reduction of overweight women in Russia. The largest earnings penalty due to extra weight is found for women occupied in construction, education, trade, and consumer services industries. The size of earnings reduction, following one-point increase of BMI, varies from 3 to 9%. In such industries as transportation, agriculture, management, finance, and the energy industry no sign of weight–wage association is detected.

Keywords: obesity; endogeneity; instrumental variables method; heteroscedastic errors; industry. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C36 I12 J16 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:apltrx:021846

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