TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Costa-Font, Joan
AU  - Juarez, Belen Saenz de Miera
        TI  - Working Times and Overweight: Tight Schedules, Weaker Fitness?
        PY  - 2018/Jul/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 11702
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp11702
        AB  - Although the rise in obesity and overweight is related to time constraints influencing health investments (e.g., exercise, shopping and cooking time, etc.), there is limited causal evidence to substantiate such claims. This paper estimates the causal effect of a change in working times on overweight and obesity drawing from evidence from the Aubrey reform implemented in the beginning of the past decade in France. We use longitudinal data from GAZEL (INSERM) 1997-2006 that contains detailed information about health indicators, including measures of height and weight.
Taking the Alsace-Mosselle department as a control group and a difference-in-differences strategy, we estimate the effect of a differential reduction in working times on body weight. Our results show evidence of 0.7% increase in average BMI an 8pp increase in the probability of overweight among blue collars exposed to the reform. In contrast, we find no effect among white collar workers. The effects are robust to different specifications and placebo tests.
        KW  - obesity
KW  - overweight
KW  - working times
KW  - difference-in-differences
KW  - blue collar
KW  - white collar
KW  - Body Mass Index
        ER  -