Fat, muscles, and wages.

[Mike Bikov]

Econ Hum Biol. 2011 Jul 19. [Epub ahead of print]
Fat, muscles, and wages.
Bozoyan C, Wolbring T.
Source

LMU Munich, Institute of Sociology, Konradstraße 6, 80801 Munich, Germany.
Abstract

Recent studies in health economics have generated two important findings: that as a measure of fatness the body mass index (BMI) is biased; and that, when it comes to analyzing wage correlates, both fat-free mass (FFM) and body fat (BF) are better suited to the task. We validate these findings for Germany using the BIAdata Base Project and the German Socio-Economic Panel. While we find no significant correlation between BMI and wages in any of our models, simple linear regression models featuring both contemporary and time-lagged fatness measures indicate that FFM and, to a lesser extent, BF are associated with hourly wages: more specifically, the relationship between FFM/BF and hourly wages is about two to three times higher for females than for males. In contrast, fixed-effects models indicate that there is no correlation between hourly wages and both FFM and BF with one exception: a significant correlation (and one in line with expectations) is found to be the rule among job changers.

Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

PMID:
21820368
[PubMed - as supplied by publisher]​

🤡🤡