Beauty and the Labor Market

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Beauty and the Labor Market

• By Daniel S. Hamermesh and Jeff E. Biddle
• Group N Ben Ebeling and Jeanny Wang

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Goals of the Paper

• To determine if physical appearance has an impact
  on earnings in the labor market
• To determine if this impact is greater on men or
  women

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Discrimination Theories

• Suggests plain-looking people earn less than
  average-looking people, who earn less than
  good-looking people
• If the impact of individuals looks is mostly
  independent on occupation it could suggest the
  existence of pure employer discrimination
• Occupational Crowding

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Discrimination Theories

• Better looking people sort into occupations where
  beauty may be more productive
• Suggests in some occupations attractive workers
  are more productive than unattractive ones
• This advantage could arise from consumer
  discrimination, with customers preferring to deal
  with better looking individuals
• Also could be occupations in which physical
  attractiveness enhances the workers ability to
  engage in productive interactions with co-workers

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Data

• Two broad household surveys conducted for the
  United States and one for Canada
• QES, QAL, QOL
• Interviewer rated the respondents physical
  appearance on a five-point scale
• Scale ranges from strikingly beautiful or
  handsome to homely
• Observed the impact of looks on hourly earnings

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Data
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Control Variables

• Excluded are those who work less than 20
  hours/week, earn under 1/hour, self-employed,
  outside the ages of 18-64, or in poor health
• Purpose was to isolate the effect of beauty on
  earnings by controlling for as many variables as
  possible
• Basically asking, what is the marginal effect of
  looks after accounting for all the other causes
  of variation in earnings that are usually
  measured?

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Regression Analysis
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Results

• Higher percentages of attractive people worked in
  occupations where looks were considered
  important, but not by a significant amount.
• Earnings premia and penalties for looks were
  independent of occupation.
• Beauty may produce independent effects on
  earnings, but cannot reject the chance there is
  no effect.

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Conclusions

• A penalty for below average looks and a premium
  for above average looks exist for both genders.
• The premium is slightly lower than the penalty.
• The effects appear to be greater for men, but the
  gender differences are not large.
• There is weak support for occupational sorting.
• There is no support for occupational crowding.
• Beauty may be productive in some occupations due
  to customer preferences.
• There is strongest support of Becker-type
  discrimination based on beauty and stemming from
  employer tastes.

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Questions?