For women who are in the market for a new job, the key to getting hired might be something unexpected: weight loss drugs.
A new study published this month found that unemployed women who took GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy noticeably increased their chances of getting hired. The study, which has yet to be peer reviewed, found that the employment rate among women who were not working jumped by 27% after they had taken weight loss drugs for 18 months.
“The estimates show that GLP-1 weight loss changes outcomes on precisely the margins where visible body weight should affect first impressions,” wrote Harvard University economics professor Rebecca Diamond, who authored the paper.
In interviews with Bloomberg and Business Insider, Diamond said she was curious about the social and economic outcomes associated with those drugs when a friend told her that she was treated differently after losing weight on a GLP-1. Diamond analyzed a trove of data from a study conducted by the University of Southern California—which surveyed more than 10,000 adults—and compared the experience of women who started taking GLP-1s against those who were interested but had not yet used the drugs.
Diamond’s findings suggest that the use of weight loss drugs largely seems to influence first impressions—and not just in the workplace. There was an even larger effect when it came to relationships: Single women were 29% more likely to get married or start living with a partner within 18 months of starting weight loss drugs.
In fact, there was little impact for women who were already employed; for those workers, job mobility and income did not appear to vastly improve after starting GLP-1s. “What does not change for women is equally informative,” Diamond wrote in the paper. “The arrangements that do not respond are the ones already in place, where any first impression occurred long ago and where weight is one characteristic embedded in a much richer stock of information.”
Previous research has shown that weight can play a role in professional success: Fat workers are judged on their appearance and can be perceived as lazy or less motivated, and companies don’t necessarily consider size as part of diversity and inclusion efforts. An analysis that looked at how weight impacts hiring decisions found that applicants who are obese or overweight were at a disadvantage—another sign that these biases can shape first impressions.
A not-insignificant share of Americans have already used GLP-1s—about one in eight adults, according to some estimates. But it’s possible their numbers could grow, as insurance coverage improves and these drugs become more accessible.
If there are legitimate effects on employment, it’s not hard to imagine more people might entertain the idea of taking weight loss drugs—or that this might become yet another source of inequality that might put higher income workers at an advantage.