Just came across this study, from late 2010, which compares the effect of weight gain and pay gaps for men and women in Germany and the US (link goes to PDF). The study was conducted by Timothy Judge from University of Florida and Daniel Cable from the London School of Economics and it took multi-year data from around 11,000 people in Germany, and 8,000 in the US. From the intro:
Cultivation theory suggests that society holds very different body standards for men versus women, and research indicates that the consequences of defying these social norms may not be linear. To test these notions in the employment context, we examined the relationship between weight and income and the degree to which the relationship varies by gender. For women, we theorized a negative weight– income relationship that is steepest at the thin end of the distribution. For men, we predicted a positive weight–income relationship until obesity, where it becomes negative. To test these hypotheses, we utilized 2 longitudinal studies, 1 German and 1 American. In Study 1, weight was measured over 2 time periods, and earnings were averaged over the subsequent 5 years. Study 2 was a multilevel study in which weight and earnings were within-individual variables observed over time, and gender was a between- individual variable. Results from the 2 studies generally support the hypotheses, even when examining within-individual changes in weight over time.
(I apologize for the watermarks in the graphics but these are screen edits of the PDF I made myself, as the study is not available in any other format).
Occupational Digest has analyzed some of the findings (emphasis here and across the board mine):
In line with hypotheses, the study found that for women the penalty of being heavier was twice as great when moving from very thin to average weight, compared to a move from average to heavy. The researchers see this as cultivation theory in action: women are punished if they deviate from the media ideal of skinniness, and even average weight represents betrayal. Any further deviations are almost academic. Meanwhile for men, the opposite was found: more weight actually means more pay, until a certain point where the weight finally begins to exact a cost, but one much smaller than that of being underweight.
Graphic one, which sums up the findings in Germany is explained:
To depict the nature of these effects, we plotted regression results for men and women. The predicted values for men and women are provided in Figure 1. In plotting the predicted values, F1 we standardized weight such that the weight is expressed on the x-axis as a deviation from each group’s average (e.g., –15 represents 15 kg below the average weight for each gender [for women, the average was 51 kg; for men, the average was 67 kg]). As the figure shows, there is a substantial average wage differential— such that regardless of weight, men earn more than women. However, the figure also shows that that the slope of weight is negative for women and positive for men.
Graphic 2 depicts the results of the American study and the results are pretty much consistent with its German counterpart, even though the gender differences seem to be even more pronounced.
The conclusion of the study in regards to these two graphics:
Indeed, both our German and American results show that once women reach an average weight, subsequent weight gains are actually penalized to a lesser extent, presumably because the social preferences for a feminine body have already been violated. For American women, gaining 25 lbs produces an average predicted decrease in salary of approximately –$15,572 at below average weight and –$13,847 at above average weight; the per pound penalty at 25 lbs below the group mean is 12% harsher than at 25 lbs above the group mean. This means that, all else equal, a woman who is average weight earns $389,300 less across a 25-year career than a woman who is 25 lbs below average weight. Thus, our results suggest that both German and American societies reward women who conform to the improbably thin female standard perpetuated by the media and mete out the stiffest punishments for the initial “rebellion” from this standard.
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