Weight Bias Against Women in the Workplace Leads to Lower Wages

Women face a weight bias in the workplace that's proving hard to reverse, with heavier women tending to earn less, while men are spared. An increase of 10% in a woman's body mass decreased her income by 6%, on top of the fact that women already earn 20% less on average than men in the U.S. The bias towards people seen as overweight has worsened over time, with social media and the perception that body weight is under one's own control being possible reasons. Female executives can pay a larger pay penalty, with overweight female executives in the top echelons seeing as much as a 16% wage penalty.