Study links GLP-1 drugs to bigger jump in women's employment than a degree

I think there's a lot of just-world fallacy going around re: how I keep running across the following pattern online now that GLP-1RA drugs exist.

Commenter A (esp. often a woman, though of any age): I lost a lot of weight and people treat me radically better. I did not change my behavior in a way that explains this; it seems like stigma / prejudice.

Commenter B: I have never met you but it is probably the case that stigma is not relevant and in fact you did somehow become more confident or otherwise start behaving differently in ways that mean your prior and current experiences of the world were somehow deserved.

Which is kind of wild!

The article has a bunch of speculation that’s not in the paper: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w35387/w353...

One key point:

> Nor do I find evidence of upward job mobility among incumbent workers. Already-employed women do not increase hours, income per household member, or job-to-job moves. If anything, employer changes decline, possibly due to a desire to retain access to health insurance that covers these drugs. These null effects help distinguish a new-match channel from a general productivity or well-being channel

This complicates the idea that it’s just people treating lighter people better. It could well be that a lot of people who take GLP-1s are obese enough where it affects their ability to go out in the world and do stuff, and losing the weight enables people to work.

This has been the case for a long time, even with attributes that you have far less control over, such as your height [1]. Given typical social prejudices, I would not be surprised if the height effect was greater for men and the weight effect was greater for women.

GLP-1 drugs seem to provide a (relatively) painless way to control the weight effect; the corresponding treatment for control of height [2] is much more painful, risky, and expensive.

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[1] https://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/standing

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/us/height-surgery-limb-le...

Lookism is pretty serious, folks. Or whatever you want to call it since that one sounds silly.

Maybe a makeover should be suggested more often in job search advice? Work on your hair and diet for a few months before you jump ship and you could have better luck.

The study compares people who actually started GLP-1 treatment to people who say they want to but didn't. It sure seems to me like people who say they want something but don't take action to get it would also be less likely to get jobs, independent of what the thing they want is.

Why take drugs when you can take home-delivery diet?

This is genuine question, I've started using them and they're one of the best things I've ever paid for.

You get good food, at calculated sizes/calories/etc etc, you don't have to do shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc.

It is insanely convenient and you can manage your weight easily without even any exercises (but they're still recommended tho)

I think people often tend to treat drastic deviations from standard appearance as an indicator for undesirable character traits.

If you are badly groomed as a man, you tend to be perceived as careless.

In my experience if you are obese, people think you lack will power and discipline.

Changing how people view you for the better always has an influence on your personal success.

Pretty privilege exists.

I wonder how GLP-1 treatment would affect men's employment. I think in the case of women, if there's an effect for appearance increasing employment opportunities, it's not surprising that losing weight would help too.

The original paper is quite readable and interesting in how the researcher works through a number of alternative hypotheses.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w35387/w353...

An tangential part of the paper is partnered men:

  Among baseline partnered men (which is where partnership dissolution is 
  well-defined), I find a 6.8pp increase in men leaving their baseline partners 
  (s.e. 2.9), which rises to 12.1pp after 1.5+ years (s.e. 6.1). Unlike women, 
  partnered men leave existing relationships with weight loss.

But if everyone takes GLP-1 ... its a level playing field again

Another point for "Pretty Privilege / Halo Effect"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_privilege

Shocking news. Humans like attractive people.

very unfortunate ! shows physical discrimination !!

Causation or correlation?

Market scarcity holds true.

40 years ago educated women were rare, even in the western world. Now not being obese is becoming increasingly rare.

I for one am glad for all the people now finding better employment opportunities, better health, and (anecdotally) better outlooks on life thanks to their weight loss. Awesome throughout.

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So uh, this is just trying to promote fat shaming and lookism using science as a judgement tool. How cool is that? /s

Oh! I thought this would be about migraine.

If looks are important for employment how then men find a job? Men are mostly unattractive even compared to not a perfect woman. In terms of looks and style, average man loses to an average woman. Or employers require only women to be attractive?