Myth or Fact? The Beauty Premium Across the Wage Distribution

37 Pages Posted: 7 Jul 2012

See all articles by Karina Doorley

Karina Doorley

University College Dublin (UCD)

Eva Sierminska

LISER; DIW Berlin - German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Abstract

We apply an innovative technique to allow for differential effects of physical appearance and self-confidence across the wage distribution, as traditional methods can confound opposing effects at either end of the wage distribution. Comparing the effects of beauty and confidence measures in two countries (Germany and Luxembourg), we find that wages are more driven by looks than self-esteem. Counterfactual wage distributions, constructed using distribution regression, show a beauty premium for women at the bottom of the wage distribution. However, most of this is explained by the fact that attractive women have better labor market attributes than their unattractive counterparts. We find a large wage premium for attractive men throughout the wage distribution which is largely unexplained by labor market attributes. There is a small wage penalty for self-confident individuals, particularly men, although their labor market characteristics are generally better than their less confident counterparts. We show that the difference in characteristics between beautiful and plain people contributes to the beauty premium identified using traditional models, particularly for women. Isolating the characteristic effect from the unexplained effect of beauty on wages leads to smaller beauty premium for women.

Keywords: wages, distribution, physical appearance, discrimination

JEL Classification: D31, J24, J30, J70

Suggested Citation

Doorley, Karina and Sierminska, Eva, Myth or Fact? The Beauty Premium Across the Wage Distribution. IZA Discussion Paper No. 6674, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2101941 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2101941

Karina Doorley (Contact Author)

University College Dublin (UCD) ( email )

Belfield
Belfield, Dublin 4 4
Ireland

Eva Sierminska

LISER ( email )

3, avenue de la Fonte
Esch-sur-Alzette, L-4364
Luxembourg

HOME PAGE: http://www.sierminska.eu

DIW Berlin - German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP)

Mohrenstraße 58
Berlin, 10117
Germany

IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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