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Self-discrimination: A field experiment on obesity

Author

Listed:
  • Pablo Brañas-Garza

    (GLOBE and Universidad de Granada)

  • Antonios Proestakis

    (GLOBE and Universidad de Granada)

Abstract

While it is well-established in the literature that obese people are discriminated against in the working environment, little is known about their own actual behavior. Our experimental setting investigates whether these potentially discriminated people respond in a different way when faced with the opportunity of earning a positive amount of money. Significant lower money requests by obese people confirm our self-discrimination hypothesis, offering an additional explanation for the wage gap; Thus, it seems that obese people earn less not only because of discrimination against them but also because they themselves are less demanding. Two different explanations are suggested obese people request less due to self-esteem vulnerability and/or due to some kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Results are not confirmed when applying the same approach to "beauty" and "gender", two features that are also often associated with wage discrimination.

Suggested Citation

  • Pablo Brañas-Garza & Antonios Proestakis, 2010. "Self-discrimination: A field experiment on obesity," ThE Papers 10/18, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    • Handle: RePEc:gra:wpaper:10/16
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    File URL: http://www.ugr.es/~teoriahe/RePEc/gra/wpaper/thepapers10_18.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Obese People Self-Discriminate
      by Christopher Shea in Ideas Market on 2012-02-08 01:04:53
    2. Obese self-discriminators
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2012-02-02 21:19:00

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Discrimination; obesity; labor market; self-fulfilling prophecy; experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

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