Judge and Cable in the Journal of Applied Pscyhology last year (2011 vol 96) found some evidence to confirm all my worst fears about the relationship between women's weight and the workplace. Thin (by which I mean actively, unhealthily, under-weight) women, it seems, are paid significantly more than women at a healthy weight. The evidence suggests that for men, their pay tends to go up as their weight goes up, until their weight reaches obesity, when pay levels off and then decreases. For women, their pay goes down as their weight goes up, and does this particularly rapdily between 'thin' and 'average'. What is particularly striking about this study is that some of the data came from within-individuals. So as well as looking at the population as a whole (thin women tend to earn more than average women), they traced participants' earnings and weight throughout their careers, showing that as an individual woman's weight goes up and down, so her salary, correspondingly, is likely to go down and up.
Their explanation is all about the social desirability of body shapes. While men are thought to be undesirable both when they are too thin and too fat, a larger man, within the bounds of a healthy weight, is accorded more respect in the workplace. In contrast, for women, being actively thin is most socially desired and best rewarded.
