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KMID : 1170320060120020125
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Korean Journal of Health Economics and Policy
2006 Volume.12 No. 2 p.125 ~ p.143
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Marital Status and Obesity -An Empirical Investigation of Causality Relationship Using Constrained Bivariate Probit Models-
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Jo Chang-Ik
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Abstract
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The prevalence of obesity varies with socioeconomic and marital status. The relationship between marital status and obesity, however, is not well established. In order to explore the origin of these associations, this study is designed to investigate the effects of marital status and an expanded set of socioeconomic covariates on obesity and body mass index (BMI, kg/m2). At the same time, we allow for reverse causality from obesity to marital status. To obtain consistent estimates of these effects, we apply ordinary least squares (OLS) models and bivariate probit models with correlated errors to data from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY 79), which is originally designed to represent the entire population of American youth in 1979. The results reveal that married men have statistically significantly larger values of BMI and are more likely to be obese than men who never married or divorced, even when demographic and socioeconomic variables are held constant. By contrast, marital status is not significantly associated with obesity of
BMI among women. These findings, which take account of reverse causality from weight to marital status, suggests that marital status appears to influence obesity among men, but not among women.
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KEYWORD
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Obesity, BMI, Marital Status, Constrained Bivariate Probit
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