Work

Facial Attractiveness and Lifetime Earnings: Evidence from a Cohort Study

Year: 2014

Type: article

Abstract: We use unique longitudinal data to document an economically and statistically significant positive correlation between the facial attractiveness of male high school graduates and their subsequent labor market earnings. There are only weak links between facial attractiveness and direct measures of cognitive skills and no link between facial attractiveness and mortality. Even after including a lengthy set of characteristics, including IQ, high school activities, proxy measures for confidence and personality, family background, and additional respondent characteristics in an empirical model of earnings, the attractiveness premium is present in the respondents' mid-30s and early 50s. Our findings are consistent with attractiveness being an enduring, positive labor market characteristic.

Source: The Review of Economics and Statistics

DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00435

Authors: John Karl Scholz, Kamil Sicinski

Institution: University of Wisconsin–Madison

Language: English

Topic: Labor market dynamics and wage inequality

Subfield: Economics and Econometrics

Field: Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Decent work and economic growth

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institute on Aging, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development