Obesity, weight status and employability: Empirical evidence from a French national survey

Paraponaris, Alain; Saliba, Bérengère; Ventelou, Bruno

doi:10.1016/j.ehb.2005.06.001

Cited by 76 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…A negative association between body weight and wages is well established in the labor economics literature. It has been observed in the United States (Averett and Korenman, 1996;Cawley, 2004;Conley and Glauber, 2006, among others), as well as in European countries such as Denmark (Greve, 2008), England (Morris, 2006), Finland (Johansson, Backerman, Kiiskinen, and Helivaara, 2009), France (Paraponaris, Saliba, and Ventelou, 2005), Germany (Cawley, Grabka, and Dean, 2005), Sweden (Lundborg, Nystedt, and Rooth, 2010), and even in Taiwan (Tao, 2008). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Obesity and the labor market: A fresh look at the weight penalty

Caliendo

Gehrsitz

2016

Economics & Human Biology

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. This paper applies semiparametric regression models to shed light on the relationship between body weight and labor market outcomes in Germany. We find conclusive evidence that these relationships are poorly described by linear or quadratic OLS specifications, which have been the main approaches in previous studies. Women's wages and employment probabilities do not follow a linear relationship and are highest at a body weight far below the clinical threshold of obesity. This indicates that looks, rather than health, is the driving force behind the adverse labor market outcomes to which overweight women are subject. Further support is lent to this notion by the fact that wage penalties for overweight and obese women are only observable in white-collar occupations. On the other hand, bigger appears to be better in the case of men, for whom employment prospects increase with weight, albeit with diminishing returns. However, underweight men in blue-collar jobs earn lower wages because they lack the muscular strength required in such occupations. JEL Classification:J31, J71, C14

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Obesity and the labor market: A fresh look at the weight penalty

Caliendo

Gehrsitz

2016

Economics & Human Biology

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“…According to the 2003 Decennial Health Survey of INSEE (Paraponaris et al, 2005), the percentage of overweight has increased from 32.9% to 37.5% and from 6.3% to 9.9% for obesity between 1980 and 2003. The health problems related to obesity are consequently increasing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Including the indirect costs such as lost days of work and reduced productivity in addition to direct costs such as personal health care, hospital care, physician services and medications, Wolf and Colditz (2006) estimate the total cost of obesity in the US in 1995 to a total of $99.2 billion. Using French data from the Decennial Health Survey, Paraponaris et al (2005) show that overweight and obesity status reduce the employability of workers. Moreover, using a prevalence-based approach identifying the costs incurred during 1992 by obese people, Levy et al (1995) find a conservative estimate of direct and indirect costs of obesity for France of more than 1.8 billion C = for direct costs and 0.1 billion C = for indirect costs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Household food consumption, individual caloric intake and obesity in France

2013

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We show how to use a long period of observation of all food purchases at the household level to infer the profile of average individual caloric intakes according to the gender, age and the body mass index of household members. Using data from France, we apply this method to analyze the relationship between obesity and individual food consumption. The results show that obese or overweight individuals do absorb more calories at all ages but with differences that vary across gender and ages and across food nutrients such as carbohydrates, lipids or proteins.

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“…In France, Paraponaris, Saliba, and Ventelou (2005) assessed that the percentage of overweight or obese individuals had increased since 1980 from 32.9 to 37.5 for overweight and from 6.3% to 9.9% for obese in 2003. In 1992, Detournay et al (2000 and Levy et al (1995) estimated the medical cost of obesity in France to be in the range 0.6-1.1 billion euros, which represented 0.7-1.5% of the country's total health expenditures.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of a Fat Tax on French Households' Purchases: A Nutritional Approach

Allais

Bertail

Nichèle

2010

American J Agri Economics

135

119

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This article assesses the effects of a "fat tax" on the nutrients purchased by French households across different income groups. This is done by making a preliminary estimation of price elasticities using a complete demand system on household scanner data, and by calculating nutrient elasticities using estimated price elasticities. We find that a fat tax has small and ambiguous effects on nutrients purchased by French households, and a slight effect on body weight in the short run, with a greater effect in the long run. Such a tax generates substantial tax revenue, but is highly regressive.

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Obesity, weight status and employability: Empirical evidence from a French national survey

Cited by 76 publications

References 29 publications

Obesity and the labor market: A fresh look at the weight penalty

Obesity and the labor market: A fresh look at the weight penalty

Household food consumption, individual caloric intake and obesity in France

The Effects of a Fat Tax on French Households' Purchases: A Nutritional Approach

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