Why overweight women are more likely to earn less than overweight men

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Wonkblog is always worth reading.

Why overweight women are more likely to earn less than overweight men

Wonkblog
By Roberto A. Ferdman October 28 at 3:31 AM

The American workforce is particularly unkind to heavier women.

The more overweight a woman, the more likely she is to work a low-paying job, according to a new study by the Vanderbilt Law School. And that contrasts with overweight men, for whom the correlation isn't nearly as strong.

"For women there's this really clear pattern," said Jennifer Shinall, the study's author. "Starting when a woman is overweight, she's less likely to work in what's known as a personal interaction job, which tends to pay better. And it only gets worse from there—morbidly obese women are the least likely to work those jobs."

The study is the most recent in a long line of research about the relationship between obesity and pay. Some of the more notable studies, including one carried out by Professor John Cawley at Cornell University in 2004, have found that weight is indeed inversely related to pay. But this most recent data dive, which controls for other factors, including demographics, finds that being overweight is a far greater disadvantage for women than it is for men.

[Cleita]

1. Also, she may be passed over for a job that she might

be better qualified for. This also happens to middle aged women who will often lose out to a younger woman less qualified than them.

I didn't think this still happened but I guess it does. When I was in the job market, many times I was asked to screen applicants for qualifications before the actual person to do the hiring would interview them. I never saw an overweight woman get the job. One employer even blatantly told me not to send him "fat chicks" no matter how qualified they were otherwise.

But it wasn't just the men. Woman in management positions turned away overweight applicants too. When I asked why, there were many excuses like they might fall on the stairs, or worse they were too heavy for the office chairs and would break them. Somehow no one worried about the "big" men doing this.