- GLP-1 medications used for weight loss may be linked to higher likelihood of marriage or cohabitation among women starting the medication.
- Starting GLP-1s was not linked to relationship status changes for women already partnered when the study started.
- A woman was denied the right to sue authorities for failing to test her rape kit for 16 years, as the court ruled that victims do not have a constitutional right to the investigation of a crime.
1 meds—perhaps better known by brand names like Ozempic and Wegovy—have become widespread as weight loss tools. But there’s evidence that links their use to to a range of positive health outcomes, and now researchers say they may “alter social and economic outcomes” too
Specifically, relationship outcomes. In a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, the Harvard economist Rebecca Diamond found GLP-1 use linked to higher likelihood of marriage or cohabitation
Using data from the University of Southern California’s Understanding America Study, Diamond compared the relationship status of women starting out on GLP-1 medications for weight loss purposes with those who wanted to take them but were not
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“Among women who are single when they start, the probability of being married or living with a partner rises 18 percentage points overall and 29 percentage points after six or more quarters,” Diamond found. She attributes this weight loss “dramatically affect[ing] first impressions of potential partners, leading to a large increase in marriage and cohabitation.”
In an era of fretting over a supposed “sex recession” and declining marriage rates, maybe GLP-1s are just what we need
Of course—you knew this was coming—correlation doesn’t equal causation. We can’t just assume that the use of GLP-1s generally or that losing weight because of them is directly responsible for more women on GLP-1s finding romantic bliss
After all, the choice to start on GLP-1s is not made in a vacuum. Maybe women who made the leap—as opposed to those in the control group who were merely thinking about it—were bolder in other ways too, and this explains their higher rates of relationship formation. Maybe the decision to take GLP-1s is prompted by the possibility of a romantic relationship starting or escalating. Or maybe the decision to take GLP-1s is often part of a broader reassessment of circumstances or reorientation of goals; this larger shift could explain both the decision to start the medication and the decision to put oneself out there in other ways, including ones that make relationship formation more likely.
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But it also seems plausible that the weight loss itself could be responsible for an increase in relationship formation and escalation. “GLP-1 weight loss changes outcomes on precisely the margins where visible body weight should affect first impressions,” writes Diamond
In other words, visibly losing weight may up people’s chances of attracting a partner in the first place. I would wager that changes in self-esteem associated with losing weight could also play a role here
Notably, starting GLP-1s was not linked to relationship status changes for women already partnered when the study started
And while starting GLP-1s was linked to getting a job among women who were unemployed at the study’s start, it was not linked to upward job mobility among women already employed
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Diamond suggests that the lack of change among women who were already employed and/or in a relationship at the start of the study helps rule out changes in “general productivity or well-being” as the cause of any differences between the GLP-1 group and the control group. She also notes that single women on GLP-1s experienced “no statistically significant change in depression, loneliness, or life satisfaction,” and argues that this is evidence that weight loss—as opposed to other factors, such as changes in “mood and motivation to date”—helped cause these differences.
In the News
No penalty for police who failed to test rape kit for 16 years. A woman going in court by Jane Doe was sexually assaulted at 14-year-old girl and let authorities conduct a medical exam to collect forensic evidence for what’s (unfortunately) known as a “rape kit.” The Anoka County, Minnesota, sheriff’s office told her mother the kit was tested but yielded no DNA evidence. In reality, it had not been tested, and would not be tested for more than 16 years
When the kit was finally tested, in 2020, it yielded DNA evidence that implicated a particular assailant. Doe responded with a lawsuit
But, per a recent ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Doe does not have standing to sue because police had no obligation to investigate her claim of rape
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“Eighth Circuit precedent bars 14th Amendment claims against the government for failing to investigate a crime,” notesLaw360
“Doe sued Anoka County and Sheriff Stuart alleging they violated her equal protection rights based on their failure to investigate her claim that she was sexually assaulted and their failure to train its employees in proper investigative practices,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Bobby Shepherd in the court’s opinion. But “a victim does not have a constitutional right to the investigation of a crime,” and thus “Doe lacks standing to maintain her constitutional claims against Anoka County and Sheriff Stuart.”
Read This Thread
More Sex & Tech
• In Australia, men who refuse to pay sex workers for contracted services are being convicted of criminal charges. “This is not merely dishonest—it is a serious sexual offense,” said Emily Smith of the legal group Southside Justice
• Recent “legal attacks on Meta merely let politicians pretend to protect children while the trial lawyers reap giant paydays,” suggests the Wall Street Journal editorial board in a piece about the social media “addiction” trial that got underway last week
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• Pornhub has agreed to a settlement with plaintiffs in two lawsuits accusing the website of profiting from sex trafficking and underage content
The post Can Ozempic Solve the Sex Recession and Raise Marriage Rates? appeared first on Reason.com
