The Change Mariner

Obese Women Earn 30% Less

Indiana Printing & Publishing:

Being fat may hurt your income - if you're a highly educated woman.

So says research from Finland that suggests weight is a pay barrier for certain women, but not for men.

Obese women who are highly educated earn about 30 percent less - a difference of at least $5,000 a year - than normal-weight or even plump women, the study found. When analyzed by occupation, women with white-collar jobs earned less if they were obese.

Obesity had little or no effect on pay if women were poorly educated, manual workers or self-employed - and no statistically significant effect on men's pay, the study found.

"This suggests that, socio-economically, obesity is not as stigmatizing for men as it is for women," concluded the University of Helsinki researchers.

They couldn't explain why, or why there was a bigger effect on some women, except to say the pressure on women to be thin may be strongest among higher socio-economic classes.

Posted by Bob King at March 4, 2004 08:59 AM | TrackBack
Related Categories: Quadrant - Economic | Theme - 'Obesity Epidemic'

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