文章來源：《經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人》Nov 25th 2023 期 Finance & economics 欄目 Workplace discrimination 工作場所歧視

文章主題：體重肥胖會(huì)面臨哪些社會(huì)歧視？男女均受影響，受過良好教育的人受影響更大。

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Obese people?experience discrimination in many parts of their lives, and the workplace is no exception.?Studies have long shown that obese workers, defined as those with a body-mass index (BMI) of 30 or more, earn significantly less than their slimmer counterparts.?In America, several state and local governments are?contemplating?laws against this treatment. On November 22nd, one such ban came into force in New York City.

肥胖人士在生活的方方面面都遭受歧視，工作場所也不例外。長期以來，許多研究表明，BMI指數(shù)達(dá)到30及以上的肥胖員工的收入顯著低于體型更苗條的同事。在美國，一些州和地方政府正在考慮制定法律來反對待遇歧視。11 月 22 日，紐約市一項(xiàng)反歧視禁令生效。

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Yet the costs of weight discrimination may be even greater than previously thought.?“The overwhelming evidence,” wrote the Institute for Employment Studies, a British think-tank, in a recent report, “is that it is only women living with obesity who experience the obesity wage?penalty.”?They were expressing a view that is widely?aired?in academic papers.?To test it, The Economist has analysed data concerning 23,000 workers from the American Time Use Survey, conducted by the Bureau of Labour Statistics.?Our number-crunching suggests that, in fact, being obese hurts the earnings of both women and men.

然而，體重歧視的代價(jià)可能比以前想象的還要大。英國智庫“就業(yè)研究所”在最近的一份報(bào)告中寫道："大量證據(jù)表明，只有肥胖女性才會(huì)遭受薪資歧視。這種觀點(diǎn)在學(xué)術(shù)論文中廣為流傳。為了驗(yàn)證這一觀點(diǎn)，本報(bào)分析了美國勞工統(tǒng)計(jì)局的《美國人時(shí)間使用調(diào)查》數(shù)據(jù)，其中包含2.3萬名工人的數(shù)據(jù)。我們的數(shù)據(jù)分析表明，實(shí)際上，肥胖對男女員工的收入都有不利影響。

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The data we analysed cover men and women aged between 25 and 54 and in full-time employment.?At an?aggregate?level, it is true that men’s BMIs are unrelated to their wages. But that changes for men with university degrees.?For them, obesity is associated with a wage penalty of nearly 8%, even after accounting for the separate effects of age, race, graduate education and marital status.?When we re-ran our analysis, using a different dataset that covers nearly 90,000 people, from the Department of Health and Human Services, we got similar results.

我們分析的數(shù)據(jù)涵蓋了25-54歲的全職男女。從總體上看，男性的體質(zhì)指數(shù)與工資無關(guān)。但對于擁有大學(xué)學(xué)位的男性來說，情況就不同了。對他們來說，即使考慮了年齡、種族、研究生學(xué)歷和婚姻狀況的單獨(dú)影響，肥胖也會(huì)給他們帶來近 8% 的工資損失。當(dāng)我們對衛(wèi)生與公眾服務(wù)部提供的近9萬人的數(shù)據(jù)集進(jìn)行重新分析時(shí)，我們得到了類似的結(jié)果。

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The conclusion—that well-educated workers in particular are penalised for their weight—holds for both sexes.?Moreover, the higher your level of education, the greater the penalty.?We found that obese men with a bachelor’s degree earn 5% less than their thinner colleagues, while those with a graduate degree earn 14% less.?Obese women, it is true, still have it worse: for them, the equivalent figures are 12% and 19%, respectively.

我們得出結(jié)論——受過良好教育的人尤其會(huì)因?yàn)轶w重而受到不利影響——對男女都適用。而且，受教育程度越高，肥胖導(dǎo)致的不利影響就越大。我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，擁有學(xué)士學(xué)位的肥胖男性比身材更瘦的同事薪資低5％，而擁有研究生學(xué)位的肥胖男性薪資會(huì)低14％。對于肥胖女性，情況還要更糟：對她們來說，相應(yīng)的數(shù)字分別是12％和19％。

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Your line of work makes a difference, too.?When we crunched the numbers for individual occupations and industries, we found the greatest?disparities?in high-skilled jobs.?Obese workers in health care, for example, make 11% less than their slimmer colleagues; those in management roles make roughly 9% less, on average.?In sectors such as construction and agriculture, meanwhile, obesity is actually associated with higher wages.

所從事的工作類型也會(huì)造成薪資差異。當(dāng)我們計(jì)算各個(gè)職業(yè)和行業(yè)的數(shù)據(jù)時(shí)，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)高技能工作中的薪資差距最大。例如，醫(yī)療保健行業(yè)的肥胖員工的收入比苗條同事低 11%；而管理崗位上，平均低9％左右。而在建筑和農(nóng)業(yè)等行業(yè)中，肥胖實(shí)際上與更高的工資有關(guān)。

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These results suggest that the aggregate costs of wage discrimination borne by overweight workers in America are?hefty.?Suppose you assume that obese women, but not men, face a wage penalty of 7% (the average across all such women in our sample) and that this is the same regardless of their level of education.?Then a?back-of-the-envelope calculation?suggests that they bear a total cost of some $30bn a year.?But if you account for both the discrimination faced by men, and for the higher wage penalty experienced by the more educated (who also tend to earn more), the total cost to this enlarged group more than doubles, to $70bn per year.

這些結(jié)果表明，美國超重工人所承受的工資歧視的總成本是很高的。假設(shè)肥胖女性（而非男性）面臨 7% 的工資損失（我們樣本中所有此類女性的平均工資），并且無論她們的教育水平如何都是相同的。那么粗略計(jì)算，肥胖女性每年要承受約 300 億美元的損失代價(jià)。但如果考慮到男性面臨的歧視，以及受過更高教育（也會(huì)賺更多錢）面臨更多的薪資損失等因素，那么肥胖男性承受的損失代價(jià)將翻倍，達(dá)到每年700億美元。

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What can be done??Several cities, such as San Francisco and Washington, DC, already ban discrimination on the basis of appearance.?A handful of states—including Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Vermont—are considering similar bills.?The ban New York City began to enforce on November 22nd prohibits weight-based discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodation such as hotels and restaurants.?Alas, it is unlikely to accomplish much.When we restricted our analysis to workers in Michigan, where a similar ban has been in place for nearly 50 years, we found the obesity wage penalty to be no lower than for America as a whole.?Outlawing prejudice is one thing.?Ironing it out?of society is quite another.

該怎么辦呢？舊金山和華盛頓特區(qū)等幾個(gè)城市已經(jīng)立法禁止外貌歧視。馬薩諸塞州、紐約州、新澤西州和佛蒙特州等少數(shù)幾個(gè)州正在考慮類似的反歧視法案。紐約市從11月22日開始實(shí)施的反體重歧視的法規(guī)，禁止在就業(yè)、住房和公共場所（如酒店和餐館）的體重歧視行為。然而，禁令收效甚微。當(dāng)我們分析密歇根州的工人時(shí)（那里類似的禁令已經(jīng)實(shí)施了近 50 年），結(jié)果發(fā)現(xiàn)肥胖薪酬損失并不低于全美國的水平。禁止歧視是一回事，但消除社會(huì)的歧視根源是另外一回事。