BMI and Employment: Is There an Overweight Premium?

Abstract

Using pooled data from the Health Survey of England (HSE) and a semi-parametric regression model, this paper aims to estimate the relationship between body weight and employment probability. We show that employment probabilities do not follow a linear relationship and are highest at a body weight over the clinical threshold for overweight. Instead of an “obesity penalty” we find evidence of an “overweight premium”, especially in socially active jobs. These results suggests that there might exists an endogenous social norm governing body weight judgments and influencing employment prospects, which has been recently updated due to an increase in average body weight.