Abstract
Objective
This study aims to explore within-country heterogeneity in the causal relationship between body mass and labour income. We focus on Mexico, which is an emerging country where overweight is predominant and hunger has become marginal.
Subjects and methods
Based on the working-age population from the Mexican Family Life Survey (2002–2012), we use a regression discontinuity design to test for significant discontinuities along the body mass-income relationship. More specifically, we investigate the presence of income gaps along the body mass distribution.
Results
Our findings suggest that the overweight status is not particularly penalised in the Mexican labour market. By contrast, the obesity status decreases hourly wages by about 15%. Regarding heterogeneity, obesity-related wage penalties are stronger for female than male employees and higher in service employments, urban areas and the latest survey.
Conclusion
We conclude on a co-occurrence of pro- and anti-fat social norms in emerging countries. Our results might be generalised to other middle-income economies with similar nutritional patterns where hunger is marginal and overweight predominant.
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Notes
BMI = [weight(kg)/height(m)2]. The World Health Organisation classifies the BMI for an adult as follows (WHO 2000): underweight (<18.5 kg/m2); normal weight (18.5–25 kg/m2); overweight (25–30 kg/m2); obesity (>30 kg/m2).
For example, in the US, Robinson and Christiansen (2014) observe a social acceptance process for obesity in areas where overweight has become the physical norm. It is likely that this process is also occurring in emerging countries where overweight and obesity rates have reached the same level as in the US.
The MxFLS reports five work statuses in Mexican cities: (1) inactive and unemployed people; (2) unpaid workers; (3) employees; (4) self-employed workers; (5) employers.
Given the relatively low proportion of self-employed workers in the Mexican labour force, the potential heterogeneity within this sample is not investigated.
Apart from these three occupational groups, we also identify four outlier occupations in Fig. 1 that we cannot classify in any specific group (transport workers, street vendors, security workers and domestic workers). Despite their singularities, these outlier employees have one thing in common: high rates of overweight and obesity (probably due to the sedentary, monotonous and/or stressful nature of their occupation).
This Spanish-speaking term refers to occupations that derive from academic and engineering studies.
Available online: http://dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5154226&fecha=04/08/2010. Note that we aggregate individuals initially classified as “underweight” into the “normal-weight” category because of the low proportion of underweight workers in Mexico. In our sample, only 2% of the labour force is underweight (Table A.1 of the Appendix).
By contrast, a fuzzy RDD must be implemented when the cut-off between control and treatment groups is more ambiguous (Imbens and Lemieux 2008).
\( \mathrm{Hourly}\ \mathrm{income}=\frac{\mathrm{monthly}\ \mathrm{income}}{\frac{\mathrm{weekly}\ \mathrm{working}\ \mathrm{hours}}{7}\times 30,5} \).
The relevance of both thresholds is tested using a placebo procedure. This test shows that 25 kg/m2 and 30 kg/m2 are the unique BMI cut-offs that lead to significant earning gaps for self-employed and salaried workers, respectively.
The score varies from 0 to 6 from a low level to a high level of infrastructural development. It takes into account the presence (or absence) of public transportation, a health centre, a refuse collection service, a sewage system, a hydraulic system and hard roads in the municipality.
Since we did not observe any local effect of overweight on hourly wage, only local effects of obesity are presented in this part of the study. Remember that only the employee sample is segmented into different sub-samples.
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The author declares that he has no financial and non-financial conflict of interest. No ethical approval is required to use the Mexican Family Life Survey. This database is anonymous and does not contain personal information. Please see the website for more information about the data: www.ennvih-mxfls.org. The author is responsible for all remaining errors.
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Key points
Overweight status is not particularly penalised in the Mexican labour market.
Obesity status decreases hourly wages by about 15%.
Obesity-related wage penalties are stronger for female than male employees and higher in service employments, urban areas and the latest survey.
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Levasseur, P. Implementing a regression discontinuity design to explore the heterogeneous effects of obesity on labour income: the case of Mexico. J Public Health (Berl.) 27, 89–101 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-018-0925-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-018-0925-5