Abstract
This paper looks into the impact of obesity and other factors on first entry into a marital or cohabiting union, using 1997 cohort data from the national longitudinal survey. Results show obese women are less likely to be accepted into either cohabitation or marriage, while obese men are less likely to be accepted in a cohabitating relation but are not less likely to enter into marriage. Income affects all union and all genders symmetrically, increasing the likelihood of a union. These results suggest that marriage is a special form of union for women, so they are willing to marry obese men because they value other factors related to the marriage choice, such as commitment or the prospect of having children. Men do not appear to value these factors as much, so obese women are less likely to be accepted into either cohabitation or marriage.
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Notes
See Rindfuss and Vandel Heuvel (1990) for a discussion on marriage and cohabitation.
Ceteris paribus, these two forms of union may also not be same for social and/or cultural reasons.
Cawley et al. (2006) report evidence supporting the assertion that the body-mass index (BMI) is negatively related to attractiveness for both males and females. They did not find any relationship between height and attractiveness for either males or females.
For a detailed review on this topic, please see Oppenheimer (1997).
For example long-term health risks (for example from smoking, alcohol abuse) of a partner may not be as important in cohabitating relation as in a marriage relation.
See Sobal and Frongillo (2003).
Analysis based on without any age restrictions does not alter our results in any way.
There is some concern because of the young nature of the panel that these cutoffs may not be appropriate for the sample, but cutoff for the sample turns out to be above the adult cutoff of 30, hence we use the adult cut-off. Cawley (2004) uses the same strategy.
To get unbiased unconditional estimates for the population transitioning from cohabitation to marriage, a two step selection model may be more appropriate. However, that is not our intent here because we also have the direct transition from single to married status in our data.
Detailed results are available on request.
Detailed results are available on request.
Detailed results are available upon request.
Detailed IV regression results are available on request. This is very similar to the pattern reported by Cawley (2004) in the context of smoking initiation.
Cawley (2004) found that obesity status is exogenous in the context of smoking initiation.
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I thank editor Shoshana Grossbard and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. I also thank Mark Pingle and Elliot Parker for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
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Mukhopadhyay, S. Do women value marriage more? The effect of obesity on cohabitation and marriage in the USA. Rev Econ Household 6, 111–126 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-007-9025-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-007-9025-y