Written by Jamie Stowe| Tuesday, 31 May 2011| There is 1 comment
highlights one of the harsh facts of life for women in the workplace.
A new survey has confirmed previous research which shows that overweight women have a significantly reduced chance of getting a good job. The study which was published by the clinical journal Economics and Human Biology highlights one of the harsh facts of life for women in the workplace.
The new research which was done in Iceland looked at both men and women and involved almost 1,100 individuals taking part in a detailed questionnaire. Ms. Tinna Laufey Asgeirsdottir who led the study looked at a whole range of variables which are known to influence the likelihood of employment such as education level, gender, age, health and their marital status. BMI readings were also calculated by using the height and weight of the participants.
The results clearly showed that the higher the BMI was for the woman the more probable she was to be unemployed even when other factors were accounted for. The research also showed that the same was true for men but weight was not nearly as significant.
Iceland is a country which prides itself on having sex equality in the workplace and is known for having elected the first female president worldwide, so these results may come as a bit of a surprise to people who believe hiring and firing is always done on a strictly professional basis.
What this survey doesn't show is whether overweight and obese women are just more likely to be less confident and less eager to actually get employed. It may be that they are not necessarily being discriminated against because of their weight but just because of the psychological effect that their weight has on them.
Losing weight tends to have a large impact on the confidence of women and this confidence is a very powerful tool in job interviews and in the ability to generally get things done.
Unfortunately there is a very misinformed perception that obese individuals are lazy and less intelligent and thus in some parts of Europe overweight people find it extremely difficult to get employed.
