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The Weight of Success: The Body Mass Index and Economic Well‐Being in S outhern A frica
Author(s) -
Wittenberg Martin
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
review of income and wealth
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.024
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1475-4991
pISSN - 0034-6586
DOI - 10.1111/roiw.12029
Subject(s) - unemployment , body mass index , economics , index (typography) , demographic economics , labour economics , medicine , economic growth , endocrinology , world wide web , computer science
We show that body mass increases with economic resources among most S outhern A fricans, although not all. Among B lack S outh A fricans the relationship is non‐decreasing over virtually the entire range of incomes/wealth. Furthermore in this group other measures of “success” (e.g., employment and education) are also associated with increases in body mass. This is true in both 1998 (the D emographic and H ealth S urvey) and 2008 ( N ational I ncome D ynamics S urvey). A similar relationship holds among residents of L esotho, S waziland, M ozambique, M alawi, and N amibia. This suggests that body mass can be used as a crude measure of well‐being. This allows us to examine the vexed question in S outh A frican labor economics whether there is involuntary unemployment. The fact that the unemployed are lighter than the employed, even when we control for household fixed effects, suggests that they are not choosing this state.