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Title: Modeling Discrimination: Gender, Weight, and Income Inequality
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Mason, Katherine
Modeling Discrimination: Gender, Weight, and Income Inequality
Presented: Atlanta GA, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2010
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: American Sociological Association
Keyword(s): Discrimination, Body weight; Gender Differences; Income; Weight

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Contemporary public discussions about the obesity epidemic and its consequences tend to focus on the potential impacts weight can have on one's health and quality of life. To the extent that associations between socioeconomic status and weight enter the conversation, it is usually to acknowledge that lower-SES people (especially the urban poor) may have limited access to fresh produce and gym memberships. In this paper, however, I examine the social and economic consequences of fatness. Using statistical data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), this paper draws on economic theories of statistical and prejudicial discrimination to examine the nature and the extent of the disadvantages overweight people face. Building on previous findings of overweight income disadvantage in this dataset [in particular, Gortmaker et al (1993)], my study finds significant gender differences in the presence and amount of discrimination affecting women's and men's income. Further, due to differing types of discrimination (statistical for overweight men and prejudicial for overweight women), this study suggests that the disadvantages overweight women face are not only more severe than those experienced by overweight men, but also that these disadvantages will worsen over time relative to overweight men's.
Bibliography Citation
Mason, Katherine. "Modeling Discrimination: Gender, Weight, and Income Inequality." Presented: Atlanta GA, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2010.