WHY DOES BODY WEIGHT PREDICT EMPLOYEE SALARY? A TEST OF COMPETING HYPOTHESES

I tested self-esteem and health limitations as two alternate mechanisms to explain the relationship between weight and salary, besides discriminatory practices. In the United States., there is some evidence to suggest that self-esteem mediates the relationship between weight and salary, however the mediation was only supported for non-Hispanic and non-Black men. While there may be some cases where weight is a factor in health limitations at work, it was not an overall trend in the United States. Similar to Judge and Cable (2011) findings, men in the United States have a positive curvilinear weight and salary relationship, as weight increases so does salary, until overweight levels where as weight increases, salary decreases. I found women to have a negative linear relationship with weight, but found no evidence of a negative curvilinear weight and salary relationship that Judge and Cable (2011) found. I discovered that Black women and Hispanic men have different weight and salary relationships from others of their gender. The lower the weight for Hispanic men, the higher their salary tended to be. Black women had a weight salary relationship similar to non-Hispanic men. In addition, I explored cultural variations in the other 18 countries by exploring the variations in the weight salary relationship based on type of community (urban vs. rural) and country beauty norms. No evidence of a weight and salary relationship was found for women in the 18 counties. However, there were variations in the weight and salary relationship for men based on the type of community. Specifically, the weight and salary relationship was stronger for men in rural communities than in urban communities.