Adolescent obesity, educational attainment and adult earnings

Abstract

We estimate the effects of being obese during adolescence on the likelihood of high school graduation, post-secondary educational attainment and labour market earnings as an adult (over 13 years later). We use longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health), conducted by the Carolina Population Center of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This is a nationally representative sample of students in grades 7 through 12 for the 1994–1995 first wave survey. Three subsequent waves of follow-up interviews occurred in 1996, 2001–2002 and finally in 2007–2008, when the sample was aged 25–31. Probit and linear regression models with a large set of controls (to minimize any bias that may result from omitting factors related to both adolescent obesity and adult outcomes) are fitted to carry out analyses separately by gender or racial groups. Pathological body weights are most notably present among males, blacks and Hispanics, suggesting possibility that diverging obesity effects may be found across race and gender groups. Unlike some prior research, we find no significant effects of adolescent obesity on high school graduation, but for some demographic groups, negative effects are found on college graduation and future income. Policy implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• adolescent obesity
• educational attainment
• adult earnings

JEL Classification:

• I10
• I24
• J1
• J31

Funding

This work benefitted from generous support from a Diversity Research Grant Award sponsored by the Tennessee Board of Regents, Nashville, Tennessee (USA). We thank Debjani Kanjilal for research assistance.

The research uses data from Add Health, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman and Kathleen Mullan Harris, and funded by a grant [P01-HD31921] from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Special acknowledgment is due to Ronald Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Persons interested in obtaining Data Files from Add Health should contact Add Health, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carolina Population Center, 123 W. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27516-2524 ([email protected]). No direct support was received from grant [P01-HD31921] for this analysis.

Notes

¹ Actual cut-offs, which depend on age, can be found in Carriere (2003). See, also, Hu (2008).

² Sample sizes did not permit identification of heterogeneous effects by gender and race simultaneously.

³ Additional results (not shown) suggest that the negative relationship between adolescent obesity and college degree attainment is strongest among white females (14%). No significant effects are found for minority females, and a somewhat smaller negative effect (9.4%) is found for white males.

⁴ Significant positive effects were found for both black males and black females (not shown).