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Temporary and persistent overweight and long-term labor market outcomes

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Abstract

We study how the duration of being overweight earlier in life is related to subsequent long-term labor market outcomes. Our data on fraternal and identical twins born and raised in the same household contain weight measurements of the twins during their early adulthood measured in 1975, 1981, and 1990 and is linked to register-based administrative data on the earnings and employment from 1990 to 2009. When combined, these data enable an empirical strategy that controls for the family environment and genes shared by twins. We find that being persistently overweight during early adulthood is negatively associated with long-term earnings for both women and men. We find that for women, the association is driven by a decrease in labor market-attachment, whereas for men, the association is driven by lower annual earnings.

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Availability of data and material

Each dataset is as such proprietary, but researchers can independently obtain access to the datasets following the procedures provided in the supplemental details.

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Stata-programs that allow replication of all of the results in the paper can be obtained from the authors.

Notes

  1. Extensive literature has used within-sibling variation to study, for instance, the effects of education on economic outcomes in different contexts (Griliches, 1979; Altonji and Dunn, 1996; Aaronson, 1998; Sacerdote, 2007; Abramitzky et al., 2012). Specifically, our approach is related to Behrman and Rosenzweig (2002) and Behrman et al. (1996) who estimate the returns to education using twin-data.

  2. The age range in our study is slightly wider than in prior literature: Han et al. (2011) study the effect of adolescent BMI on education and occupation. The cohorts in Chen (2012) are teens (age 16), young adults (age 23), and adults (age 33). In Pinkston (2017) ages vary between 16–30.

  3. Record linkages of the cohort study data conform to the Finnish Data Protection Act and were originally approved by the ethical committee of the Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki (Kaprio et al., 1979). All the data work of this paper was carried out at Statistics Finland, following its terms and conditions of confidentiality.

  4. We acknowledge that the number of twin pairs is relatively small. However, the problem and the possible consequences of small sample size, for example on the power of the study, are shared by all studies using twin data.

  5. As discussed below, these commonly used thresholds (in research and clinical work) are obviously proxies of excess body weight and have their limitations (see below). Anyhow, we use the official cutoffs determined by WHO for transparency instead of relying more "ad hoc" measures.

  6. Figure A1 plots the local polynomial regressions of each long-term outcome on BMI (average over time) and Figure A2 plots twin-differenced local polynomial regressions of each long-term outcome on twin-differenced BMI (average over time). The former provide support for our use of BMI = 25 as the threshold for being overweight.

  7. Our education variable refers to the number of years in school, which is based on information on achieved degrees and standard degree times.

  8. It is unlikely that our results are explained by children only. For example, Finland universal health coverage and all individuals are insured by the National Health Insurance scheme. All pregnant women also attend regular well-child visits prior and after labor. It is also likely that the existing family leave policies Finland alleviate the effects of children on labor market outcomes.

  9. The descriptive nature of our study is also in line with the interpretation of BMI being a proxy of different factors that can be associated with long-term labor market outcomes.

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Funding

Dr Laine received financial support from the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation (research Grant No. 6578) and the KAUTE Foundation.

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  1. Liisa T. Laine

    Present address: Leonard Davis Institute, University of Pennsylvania, 3641 Locust Walk, 308 CPC, Philadelphia, 19104-6218, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

    Liisa T. Laine

  2. Hanken School of Economics and Helsinki GSE, Helsinki, Finland

    Ari Hyytinen

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Correspondence to Liisa T. Laine.

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The authors declare no conflicts of interest or competing interests.

Ethical approval

The two data sets were linked by using personal coded identifiers by Statistics Finland. Record linkages of the cohort study data conform to the Data Protection Act and were originally approved by the ethical committee of the Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki (Kaprio et al., 1979). Statistics Finland has accepted the record linkages used for the matched data used in this paper. All the data work of this paper was carried out at Statistics Finland, following its terms and conditions of confidentiality.

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We thank Anirban Basu, Petri Böckerman, Norma B. Coe, Randall Ellis, Jaakko Kaprio, Ching-to Albert Ma, Terhi Maczulskij, Miikka Rokkanen, Benjamin Solow, Wenjia Zhu, and the participants of the ASHEcon 2014 in Los Angeles and the Boston University Department of Economics Health Economics reading group for their comments and suggestions. Dr Laine gratefully acknowledges funding from the the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation (research Grant No. 6578) and the KAUTE Foundation.

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Laine, L.T., Hyytinen, A. Temporary and persistent overweight and long-term labor market outcomes. Int J Health Econ Manag. 22, 181–203 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10754-021-09315-4

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