The “obesity penalty” isn’t a new concept, but new research is lending more credibility to the idea. A Harvard economist has found a link between weight loss with the help of GLP-1s and women’s ability to not only get a husband, but also a job. Obesity penalty is a term used by economists and sociologists […]
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The “obesity penalty” isn’t a new concept, but new research is lending more credibility to the idea. A Harvard economist has found a link between weight loss with the help of GLP-1s and women’s ability to not only get a husband, but also a job.
Obesity penalty is a term used by economists and sociologists to describe the struggles people of higher body weights face in the labor and dating markets – especially women. Multiple studies dating back decades have found that the more people weigh, the fewer opportunities they get.
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Rebecca Diamond, an economics professor at Harvard University, said her study was inspired by a friend who said she noticed a “stark difference” in the way people treated her after using GLP-1s to lose weight.
“It was almost a passing comment, but it gave me the curiosity of, ‘Huh, is there any research on the economic and social implications of these drugs?’” Diamond told The FAS Current. “I did a quick lit review, and I couldn’t really find anything. Then I dug into it.”
Keep in mind that Diamond’s study is a “working paper,” meaning it was published for discussion and has yet to face peer review.
The research
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About 22% of American women and 14% of men have taken GLP-1s for weight loss or to treat a chronic condition, according to KFF.
Diamond used data from the University of Southern California’s Understanding America Study, a nationally representative, probability-based internet panel of approximately 15,000 U.S. residents. She compared women who started using a GLP-1 for weight loss and women who said they would like to start a GLP-1 but have not.
Diamond found that for women who were single when they started using a GLP-1, the probability they would later get married or begin living with a partner rose by as much as 29 percentage points after 18 months of usage. She also found that the employment rate for women taking GLP-1s went up by nearly 27 percentage points in the same amount of time.
“Much of the employment gain is movement out of unemployment rather than out of retirement or disability,” Diamond said in her working paper.
Diamond also acknowledged that “the gain builds gradually as weight comes off.” Outcomes for those who had only taken GLP-1s for 12 months were slightly lower – an 18 percentage point increase for marriage probability, while employment rates went up by 13 percentage points.
First impressions matter
In her research, Diamond found that the data was “essentially unchanged” for women who were already in a relationship or employed when they started taking GLP-1s. She said she believes that’s largely because their first impression already happened.
“You might expect if you’re just more motivated and more excited about taking on new things, you might have seen some increase in those metrics,” Diamond told The FAS Current. “But we don’t see that. That’s why I think it’s more about the first impression margin.”
Diamond said she hasn’t ruled out the idea that the rise in romantic outcomes might not be due to discrimination, but women feeling happier and more enthusiastic about dating. However, she added that if the rise in job rates were due to mood and productivity, women who were already employed before starting GLP-1s would likely have reported increased hours or promotions, but they did not.
“For people who have been in a job a long time, the employer knows whether you’re good at the job; they don’t care about your weight at that point anymore,” Diamond said. “On the partnership margin, your partner cares about more than just your weight; that’s why you are with them.”
She also raised concerns over the potential social impact widespread use of GLP-1s could have.
“If everybody else is losing weight and getting jobs, maybe it’s extra stigmatizing to be an overweight person if you can’t afford these drugs,” Diamond said. “Depending on how the ‘new world’ shakes out, if weight is less related to drugs or to people’s negative association with it, maybe it’s not so bad. But I think it likely could make it much worse to be an overweight person in this world.”
Organizations often strive to avoid biases involving race, gender, age, and disability, but rarely weight bias. And according to Forbes, subjective corporate language – like ‘executive presence’, ‘polished’, ‘client ready’, ‘culture fit’ and ‘looks the part’ – masks the reality that without clearly defined criteria, these terms can also become proxies through which unconscious preferences enter hiring decisions.
