Petter Lundborg
Professor
Body Size, Skills, and Income: Evidence From 150,000 Teenage Siblings
Författare
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.
Avdelning/ar
- Centrum för ekonomisk demografi
- Nationalekonomiska institutionen
- Institutionen för hälsovetenskaper
Publiceringsår
2014
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
1573-1596
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Demography
Volym
51
Issue
5
Länkar
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Population Assn Amer
Ämne
- Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy
Nyckelord
- Obesity
- Overweight
- Discrimination
- Earnings
- Skills
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 1533-7790