Taking weight-loss drugs could help unemployed women get a job, according to new research. 

Unemployed women taking GLP-1 medications to lose weight saw a 27 percentage-point increase in employment after 18 months of use, compared with women who want to use the drugs but haven’t done so, Harvard economist Rebecca Diamond said in a recent paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The data adds to an existing body of research documenting a so-called “obesity penalty” disproportionately affecting heavier women, who tend to earn less and who are less likely to marry or live with a partner. Women who started taking the drugs saw their marriage and cohabitation rates rise by 29 percentage points after 18 months of using a GLP-1 treatment, Diamond also found. 

Although such findings suggest that GLP-1 usage can affect economic or social outcomes for women, there’s no evidence that the drugs helped already employed women advance in their careers by earning a raise or promotion, noted Diamond, who didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The research also raises questions about who can access GLP-1 drugs, given that early adopters tend to be “disproportionately financially advantaged,” she wrote. 

“If medical weight loss changes how women are treated in markets, then unequal access to the drugs may also shape who can avoid the social and economic penalties attached to body size,” Diamond wrote. “It is also unsettling to think about using medical treatment as a possible remedy for discrimination.”

What is the “female obesity penalty”?

Existing research shows that obese women face discrimination in the labor market. They tend to earn less money and receive fewer callbacks after first interviews than their lighter peers do. 

GLP-1s can change that reality for heavier women, who are increasingly turning to the drugs expressly to slim down. By the end of 2024, 6% of women had started using a GLP-1 for the purpose of slimming down, according to Diamond, who notes that uptake is greater among women with a history of obesity, 9% of whom had turned to the drugs to lose weight. 

Diamond used the Understanding America Study, a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults, to compare women who start a GLP-1 regimen to lose weight with their counterparts who have not yet begun a GLP-1 weight-loss regimen.

“Women not employed at baseline also move into work,” she writes, noting that employment gains build gradually as job candidates become slimmer. Workers who were unemployed and found jobs accounted for most of the employment gains, rather than people who returned from retirement or disability. 

What accounts for the change? 

Prospects for employed women who start taking GLP-1s don’t change because a first impression was formed a long time ago, and their subsequent career trajectories likely reflect other factors, such as performance, the study found.

In other words, the “obesity penalty” is strongest during the interview process and less prevalent in workplaces. 

Diamond posits that a decline in weight-related health issues could account for weight-loss drug users’ improved prospects, but she found that employment gains in her study population exceed reported work limitations, and that candidates’ visible weight loss accounts for most of the increase in employment.