Body weight and wages: evidence from Add Health

Abstract

This note uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine the relationship between body weight and wages. Ordinary least squares (OLS) and individual fixed effects estimates provide evidence that overweight and obese white women are paid substantially less per hour than their slimmer counterparts. Two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimation confirms this relationship, suggesting that it is not driven by time-variant unobservables.