IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ehbiol/v10y2012i3p256-263.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Weight and earnings among childbearing women in Metropolitan Cebu, Philippines (1983–2002)

Author

Listed:
  • Colchero, M. Arantxa
  • Bishai, David

Abstract

We estimated the relationship between weight status and earnings among women participating in the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Surveys between 1983 and 2002 conducted in Cebu, Philippines. Women working for pay were selected for the analysis. We used fixed effects estimation to account for unobserved time invariant characteristics related to weight. After correcting for potential bias due to unobserved heterogeneity, our results suggest that the earnings of obese or overweight women in Cebu (Philippines) were not less than women of normal weight. The relation between earnings and weight exists only among self-employed women or women working in more than one type of activity. No discrimination was found among women working for wages or per piece rate. In contrast, among self-employed and women working in more than one type of activity we found that underweight women earn less than do those with normal weight.

Suggested Citation

  • Colchero, M. Arantxa & Bishai, David, 2012. "Weight and earnings among childbearing women in Metropolitan Cebu, Philippines (1983–2002)," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 256-263.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:10:y:2012:i:3:p:256-263
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2011.04.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X11000438
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ehb.2011.04.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Strauss & Duncan Thomas, 1998. "Health, Nutrition, and Economic Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(2), pages 766-817, June.
    2. Paul Schultz, T., 2003. "Wage rentals for reproducible human capital: evidence from Ghana and the Ivory Coast," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 331-366, December.
    3. Unknown, 1967. "Index," 1967 Conference, August 21-30, 1967, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 209796, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Linda Adair & Barry Popkin & David Guilkey, 1993. "The duration of breast-feeding: How is it affected by biological, sociodemographic, health sector, and food industry factors?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 30(1), pages 63-80, February.
    5. Hausman, Jerry, 2015. "Specification tests in econometrics," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 38(2), pages 112-134.
    6. Wada, Roy & Tekin, Erdal, 2010. "Body composition and wages," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 242-254, July.
    7. Dinda, Soumyananda & Gangopadhyay, P.K. & Chattopadhyay, B.P. & Saiyed, H.N. & Pal, M. & Bharati, P., 2006. "Height, weight and earnings among coalminers in India," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 342-350, December.
    8. John Stewart & Barry Popkin & David Guilkey & John Akin & Linda Adair & Wilhelm Flieger, 1991. "Influences on the Extent of Breast-Feeding: A Prospective Study in the PhiLippines," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 28(2), pages 181-199, May.
    9. Charles L. Baum & William F. Ford, 2004. "The wage effects of obesity: a longitudinal study," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(9), pages 885-899, September.
    10. Fogel, Robert W, 1994. "Economic Growth, Population Theory, and Physiology: The Bearing of Long-Term Processes on the Making of Economic Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 369-395, June.
    11. Atella, Vincenzo & Pace, Noemi & Vuri, Daniela, 2008. "Are employers discriminating with respect to weight?: European Evidence using Quantile Regression," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 305-329, December.
    12. Colchero, M. Arantxa & Caballero, Benjamin & Bishai, David, 2008. "The effect of income and occupation on body mass index among women in the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Surveys (1983-2002)," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(9), pages 1967-1978, May.
    13. Johansson, Edvard & Böckerman, Petri & Kiiskinen, Urpo & Heliövaara, Markku, 2009. "Obesity and labour market success in Finland: The difference between having a high BMI and being fat," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 36-45, March.
    14. Barry Popkin & David Guilkey & John Akin & Linda Adair & J. Richard Udry & Wilhelm Flieger, 1993. "Nutrition, lactation, and birth spacing in filipino women," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 30(3), pages 333-352, August.
    15. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    16. Thomas, Duncan & Strauss, John, 1997. "Health and wages: Evidence on men and women in urban Brazil," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 159-185, March.
    17. Brunello, Giorgio & D'Hombres, Beatrice, 2007. "Does body weight affect wages?: Evidence from Europe," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 1-19, March.
    18. Susan Averett & Sanders Korenman, 1996. "The Economic Reality of the Beauty Myth," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 31(2), pages 304-330.
    19. Greve, Jane, 2008. "Obesity and labor market outcomes in Denmark," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 350-362, December.
    20. Euna Han & Edward C. Norton & Sally C. Stearns, 2009. "Weight and wages: fat versus lean paychecks," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 535-548, May.
    21. John Cawley, 2004. "The Impact of Obesity on Wages," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(2).
    22. Deolalikar, Anil B, 1988. "Nutrition and Labor Productivity in Agriculture: Estimates for Rural South India," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(3), pages 406-413, August.
    23. Cawley, John & Han, Euna & Norton, Edward C., 2009. "Obesity and labor market outcomes among legal immigrants to the United States from developing countries," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 153-164, July.
    24. Carba, Delia B. & Tan, Vivencia L. & Adair, Linda S., 2009. "Early childhood length-for-age is associated with the work status of Filipino young adults," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 7-17, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pierre LEVASSEUR, 2016. "The effects of bodyweight on wages in urban Mexico," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2016-18, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    2. Md Nazmul Ahsan & Inas Rashad Kelly, 2018. "Earnings Gaps for Conspicuous Characteristics: Evidence from Indonesia," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(1), pages 121-141, July.
    3. Nuñez, Roy, 2020. "Obesity and labor market in Peru," MPRA Paper 105621, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Levasseur, Pierre, 2017. "The ambiguous causal relationship between body-mass and labour income in emerging economies: The case of Mexico," MPRA Paper 81933, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Kelly, Inas R. & Doytch, Nadia & Dave, Dhaval, 2019. "How does body mass index affect economic growth? A comparative analysis of countries by levels of economic development," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 58-73.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cawley, John & Han, Euna & Norton, Edward C., 2009. "Obesity and labor market outcomes among legal immigrants to the United States from developing countries," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 153-164, July.
    2. Chu, Filmer & Ohinmaa, Arto, 2016. "The obesity penalty in the labor market using longitudinal Canadian data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 10-17.
    3. Susan Averett & Laura Argys & Jennifer Kohn, 2012. "Immigration, obesity and labor market outcomes in the UK," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-19, December.
    4. Larose, Samantha L. & Kpelitse, Koffi A. & Campbell, M. Karen & Zaric, Gregory S. & Sarma, Sisira, 2016. "Does obesity influence labour market outcomes among working-age adults? Evidence from Canadian longitudinal data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 26-41.
    5. Jiangli Dou & Limin Du & Ken Wang & Hailin Sun & Chenggang Zhang, 2020. "Wage Penalties or Wage Premiums? A Socioeconomic Analysis of Gender Disparity in Obesity in Urban China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(19), pages 1-20, September.
    6. Nuñez, Roy, 2020. "Obesity and labor market in Peru," MPRA Paper 105621, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Kinge, Jonas Minet, 2016. "Body mass index and employment status: A new look," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 117-125.
    8. Caliendo, Marco & Gehrsitz, Markus, 2016. "Obesity and the labor market: A fresh look at the weight penalty," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 209-225.
    9. Sabia, Joseph J. & Rees, Daniel I., 2012. "Body weight and wages: Evidence from Add Health," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 14-19.
    10. Mosca, Irene, 2013. "Body mass index, waist circumference and employment: Evidence from older Irish adults," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 522-533.
    11. Kinge, Jonas Minet, 2015. "Body mass index and employment status: a new look," HERO Online Working Paper Series 2015:3, University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme.
    12. Margareta Dackehag & Ulf-G. Gerdtham & Martin Nordin, 2015. "Productivity or discrimination? An economic analysis of excess-weight penalty in the Swedish labor market," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 16(6), pages 589-601, July.
    13. Palermo, Tia M. & Dowd, Jennifer B., 2012. "Childhood obesity and human capital accumulation," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(11), pages 1989-1998.
    14. Kim, Tae Hyun & Han, Euna, 2015. "Impact of body mass on job quality," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 75-85.
    15. Asgeirsdottir, Tinna Laufey, 2011. "Do body weight and gender shape the work force? The case of Iceland," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 148-156, March.
    16. Tinna Laufey Ásgeirsdóttir & Harpa H. Berndsen & Bryndís Þ. Guðmundsdóttir & Bryndís A. Gunnarsdóttir & Hugrún J. Halldórsdóttir, 2016. "The effect of obesity, alcohol misuse and smoking on employment and hours worked: evidence from the Icelandic economic collapse," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 313-335, June.
    17. Dolado, Juan J. & Minale, Luigi & Guerra, Airam, 2023. "Uncovering the roots of obesity-based wage discrimination: The role of job characteristics," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    18. Johansson, Edvard & Böckerman, Petri & Kiiskinen, Urpo & Heliövaara, Markku, 2009. "Obesity and labour market success in Finland: The difference between having a high BMI and being fat," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 36-45, March.
    19. Sif Jónsdóttir & Tinna Ásgeirsdóttir, 2014. "The effect of job loss on body weight during an economic collapse," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 15(6), pages 567-576, July.
    20. Md Nazmul Ahsan & Inas Rashad Kelly, 2018. "Earnings Gaps for Conspicuous Characteristics: Evidence from Indonesia," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(1), pages 121-141, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cebu; Wages; Anthropometry; BMI; Obesity; Overweight; Underweight; Development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I - Health, Education, and Welfare
    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:10:y:2012:i:3:p:256-263. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622964 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.