Petter Lundborg
Professor
Body Size, Skills, and Income: Evidence From 150,000 Teenage Siblings
Author
Summary, in English
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.
Department/s
- Centre for Economic Demography
- Department of Economics
- Department of Health Sciences
Publishing year
2014
Language
English
Pages
1573-1596
Publication/Series
Demography
Volume
51
Issue
5
Links
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Population Assn Amer
Topic
- Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy
Keywords
- Obesity
- Overweight
- Discrimination
- Earnings
- Skills
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1533-7790