April 2016 B

Want more money? Workout and Be Active.

A study by a pair of economists from the University of Jyväskylä, in Finland, concludes that being physically active has a positive impact on long-term income.The researchers looked at the physical and financial fitness of more than 5,000 male twins, who were tracked from 1975 to 2004. They found the long-term incomes of the twins who regularly exercised were 14 to 17 percent higher than those of their more sedentary siblings in the UK and the NLSY show evidence of engaging in regular exercise yields a 6 to 10% wage increase in the US.

I am still looking for research findings in Canada for our National population data and it appears that a study of our local labour markets have not been conducted yet. The UK research findings data suggest, surprisingly, that this difference isn’t explained by the more active twins' better health. Rather, the researchers write in the journal Social Science and Medicine, physical fitness seems to “make people more persistent in the face of work-related difficulties, and increase their desire to engage in competitive situations.” So if you need inspiration to sign up for that 5K or 10K run, picture it leading to a $40-100K salary depending on where you live and what your current annual income is.

This sort of finding isn’t completely new. Previous studies have shown very similar things, but it’s often been difficult to determine whether there’s true causation. It could simply be that those who exercise also are more disciplined at work. Other studies have found a correlation between the amount of time employees exercise and their salary. But now there seems to be a stronger link found between earnings and exercise.

In this latest study, researcher Vasilios Kosteas of Cleveland State University scored each subject on how well they fit the profile of a regular exerciser. He then compared only similar individuals, some of whom didn’t exercise, and found that those who actually did earned more — 9% more. Other studies have shown the flip side: that people who are not in good shape tend to make less money. A 2007 study, for example, found that women who were obese earned, on average, 18% less than those who weren’t. Those who were overweight also had 25% less family income.

The latest study defined “regular exercise” as working out at least three hours per week. Considering that the average hourly wage in the U.S. is $23.41, the time workers spend at the gym is valued at $70.23 — but the extra pay the exercising employee receives is $84.28, about 20% more than the value of the time spent at the gym.

So even though a lot of people ending up wasting their memberships, or increase their success rate by hiring a personal trainer for proper and safer training that is more effective and achieves 70% more results than those who try to workout in a gym without a professional personal trainer, maybe your monthly gym pass is worth it after all.


Sources:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24034960
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12122-011-9129-2
https://files.nyu.edu/dc66/public/obesity_income_final.pdf