Obesity as a barrier to the transition from welfare to work
By: John Cawley, Sheldon Danziger.
Contributors: Danziger, Sheldon.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series ;; working paper 10508; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;; working paper no. 10508.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Subjects: African-American women -- Employment; Overweight persons -- United States -- Employment; Discrimination in employment -- United States; Public welfare -- United States; Labor market -- United States
Description: "This paper utilizes a rich longitudinal data set -- the Women's Employment Study (WES) to investigate whether obesity, which is common among women of low socioeconomic status, is a barrier to employment and earnings for current and former welfare recipients.  We find evidence that, among current and former welfare recipients, high body weight is a greater barrier to labor market success for white women than for African-American women.  Among white women, we consistently find a negative correlation between weight and labor market outcomes such as employment, hours worked, and earnings.  Among African American women, weight is not correlated with employment, hours worked, or earnings, but it is correlated with the percentage of months spent on welfare between interviews.  We provide suggestive evidence that these differences between white and African-American women in the relationship between body weight and labor market outcomes are partly due to differential weight-based discrimination in employment"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
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