The full article, linked above, is well worth reading.
A major source for their article is a new study, currently undergoing peer review, by Jennifer Shinall, assistant professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School. Another, shorter summary of that study is available here on the Vanderbilt news site.
Here is the link to the original, full study: Why Obese Workers Earn Less: Occupational Sorting and Its Implication for the Legal System.
This new study, and the other information The Guardian has collated, follows on well from the details I recently posted regarding the Swedish obesity-on-earnings study which studied the impact of obesity as a teenager on later earnings. In that I also discussed a 2011 study on later-life earning impact based on current obesity; that same study appears to be the source for some of The Guardian’s data.
Summary of Shinall’s study:
My quick summation: the reason obese women earn less is based on the type of work undertaken. Jobs involving “personal interaction” in general pay significantly more than jobs involving “physical activity” (in other words: “office based” vs “menial” / white collar vs blue collar.) And the study demonstrates that “personal interaction” jobs consistently favour employment of thinner women, and pay less to any heavier women that they do employ. Further, it is demonstrated that this is not because heavier women do not want these jobs, but rather that the employers will not hire them. These differences are found, with statistical significance, amongst women. They are not found amongst men.
[T]he empirical results [support the] prediction [regarding] occupations emphasizing personal interaction. Morbidly obese women in particular are less likely to work in these types of occupations. And those morbidly obese women who do choose to work in such occupations encounter a wage penalty not encountered by women of other BMI classifications.
[As to why this is:] If (as has been proved) employers are less willing to pay obese workers for certain types of occupational characteristics, then obese workers will face a wage penalty in jobs with these occupational characteristics. Obese workers, as a result, will sort out of these jobs to avoid the wage penalty. According to the empirical results presented above, this [employer-based cause] perfectly describes what is happening to heavier female workers—and in particular, to morbidly obese female workers—in occupations emphasizing personal interaction.
To put it another, much more frank way:
if you’re a woman who is at all overweight your employer doesn’t want you meeting customers, or running a team. Or even being part of a team. They want you mopping the floor or stuffing envelopes; somewhere that no-one can see you.
If you’re a man, it’s fine - after all, fat men are ‘jolly’ and ‘fun’, right?
[A]ccording to these results, morbidly obese men are actually more likely than normal-weight men to work in occupations that emphasize communication with supervisors and interpersonal relationships.
Some general quotes from The Guardian article, detailing both Shinall’s study, and other studies on weight-based wage discrimination:
Being thin, it seems, is an unspoken requirement if you’re after a fatter paycheck. And the thinner you are, the better you fare, financially speaking. If you are deemed to be heavy, on the other hand, you suffer, as a 2011 study made clear. Heavy women earned $9,000 less than their average-weight counterparts; very heavy women earned $19,000 less. Very thin women, on the other hand, earned $22,000 more than those who were merely average. And yes, those results are far more visible on women’s earnings than on those of men.
When does discrimination start? Brace yourselves: long, long before you reach a BMI of 35.
In fact, one study suggested that bias against women begins showing up when they are only a few pounds above their ideal weight, although men can pile on far more pounds before it becomes a problem for them.
A woman who is 5ft 5in, for instance, begins to experience this when she is only 13lbs above what the BMI charts deem her highest healthy weight. At that point, her BMI is still only 27, and she weighs 16[0] lbs – and is probably quite able to fit into a size 14 dress, and she’s still within the range of today’s “average” American woman.
There is almost no scenario where being overweight is an advantage for a woman – or even where it puts a woman on an even playing field relative to their overweight male counterparts. Indeed, weight discrimination seems to be on the rise. And it’s not just about what women earn, but how they spend.
(Original article had a typo on weight, saying ‘16 lbs’. I’ve corrected this above to 160 lbs which is what I think they meant: a woman of 5’5” weighing 160 lbs would have a BMI of 26.6, which rounds up to the BMI 27 they stated.)
And no, it has nothing to do with a woman’s likely level of education. “I controlled for education in my study,” says Shinall. “What is going on is being driven by the employer side of the equation; by employer preferences.”
Note regarding race in The Guardian’s article: it’s unclear from The Guardian article whether race was a factor tested for, or whether the 2011 study providing the wage gap figures deals primarily or only with white women. My guess is that the headline figures listed - $9k to $19k - are predominantly for white women; the study on obesity I referenced in my previous post indicated that the weight-related wage gap was lower for women of colour than for white women - which I guessed was because women of colour’s wages are so low already, and their jobs generally being of a lower tier, that weight based discrimination was a smaller overall component in their overall, very large wage gap.
