Body size, skills, and income: evidence from 150,000 teenage siblings

Demography. 2014 Oct;51(5):1573-96. doi: 10.1007/s13524-014-0325-6.

Abstract

We provide new evidence on the long-run labor market penalty of teenage overweight and obesity using unique and large-scale data on 150,000 male siblings from the Swedish military enlistment. Our empirical analysis provides four important results. First, we provide the first evidence of a large adult male labor market penalty for being overweight or obese as a teenager. Second, we replicate this result using data from the United States and the United Kingdom. Third, we note a strikingly strong within-family relationship between body size and cognitive skills/noncognitive skills. Fourth, a large part of the estimated body-size penalty reflects lower skill acquisition among overweight and obese teenagers. Taken together, these results reinforce the importance of policy combating early-life obesity in order to reduce healthcare expenditures as well as poverty and inequalities later in life.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Body Mass Index
  • Body Weights and Measures
  • Cognition*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Income / statistics & numerical data*
  • Male
  • Obesity / economics
  • Obesity / psychology
  • Overweight / economics*
  • Overweight / psychology*
  • Siblings*
  • Socioeconomic Factors
  • Sweden
  • United Kingdom
  • United States