Cawley, John. 2004. "The Impact of Obesity on Wages." Journal of Human Resources 39(2): 451-474.

Previous studies of the relationship between body weight and wages have found mixed results. This paper uses a larger data set and several regression strategies in an attempt to generate more consistent estimates of the effect of weight on wages. Differences across gender, race, and ethnicity are explored.

This paper finds that weight lowers wages for white females; OLS estimates indicate that a difference in weight of two standard deviations (roughly 65 pounds) is associated with a difference in wages of 9 percent. In absolute value, this is equivalent to the wage effect of roughly one and a half years of education or three years of work experience. Negative correlations between weight and wages observed for other gender-ethnic groups appear to be due to unobserved heterogeneity.

John Cawley is an assistant professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University. For their helpful comments, he thanks Susan Averett, Gary Becker, John Bound, Charlie Brown, Rachel Dunifon, Michael Grossman, James Heckman, Sanders Korenman, Darius Lakdawalla, Helen Levy, Will Manning, David Meltzer, Tomas Philipson, Chris Ruhm, seminar participants, and two anonymous referees. The author thanks Justin Lynge for editorial assistance. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning October 2004 through September 2007 from John Cawley, 134 MVR Hall, Department of Policy Analysis and Management, Ithaca, NY 14853-4401. Email: jhc38@cornell.edu.