Obesity drugs taken by one in eight American adults are changing more than body weight, altering women's social and economic status, according to new research.
One in eight — or 12% — of US adults are currently taking GLP-1 obesity drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro, while 18% have used them at least once, according to KFF, a US nonprofit health policy research organization, and the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), among others, cited Thursday. The usage rate among women (15%) was higher than among men (9%), and one in five women aged 50 to 64 (20%) had experience using the drugs, the highest among all age groups.
As of 2025, the number of GLP-1 users in the US is estimated at about 10 million, projected to rise to 25 million by 2030.
As obesity drug use becomes widespread, Rebecca Diamond, a professor of economics at Harvard University, released a study through an NBER working paper analyzing the impact of GLP-1 administration on women's social and economic status.
Unmarried women who took obesity drugs were 18.3 percentage points more likely to marry or cohabit than women who did not, and 18 months after treatment the gap widened to 28.6 percentage points. Among unemployed women, the employment rate was also 13.2 percentage points higher in the treatment group, widening to a 26.9 percentage point difference after the same period.
The researchers analyzed that the disadvantages associated with obesity operate most intensively at gateways where first impressions are decisive, such as job interviews and blind dates. By contrast, no significant change was observed among women who were already employed or married.
However, among married men, the rate of separating from a spouse was actually higher in the obesity drug treatment group than in the untreated group. The researchers cautioned that this result should not be generalized because the male sample size was small.
"Large-scale pharmacological weight loss is not simply a health shock, but a shock that shakes the very valuation assigned to weight in the labor market and social relationships," Diamond said.
