Beholding Inequality: Race, Gender, and Returns to Physical Attractiveness in the United States1

Authored by journals.uchicago.edu and submitted by smurfyjenkins

Physical attractiveness is an important axis of social stratification associated with educational attainment, marital patterns, earnings, and more. Still, relative to ethnoracial and gender stratification, physical attractiveness is relatively understudied. In particular, little is known about whether returns to physical attractiveness vary by race or significantly vary by race and gender combined. In this study, we use nationally representative data to examine whether (1) socially perceived physical attractiveness is unequally distributed across race/ethnicity and gender subgroups and (2) returns to physical attractiveness vary significantly across race/ethnicity and gender subgroups. Notably, the magnitude of the earnings disparities along the perceived attractiveness continuum, net of controls, rivals and/or exceeds in magnitude the black-white race gap and, among African-Americans, the black-white race gap and the gender gap in earnings. The implications of these findings for current and future research on the labor market and social inequality are discussed.

slurmfactory on June 21st, 2021 at 02:19 UTC »

As someone who has alternated being semi overweight and semi in shape, the way people in general treat you differently is very noticeable.

WellspringGames on June 20th, 2021 at 23:24 UTC »

Weird experience with working remotely for a year. We had a new hire, average looking dude, fine employee, people were nice to him, nothing special.

When we get back to the office turns out he's 6'4" and it blew me away to see how differently people began to treat him. A lot of respect and attention all of sudden that he did NOT get while on Zoom

smurfyjenkins on June 20th, 2021 at 17:07 UTC »

Abstract:

Physical attractiveness is an important axis of social stratification associated with educational attainment, marital patterns, earnings, and more. Still, relative to ethnoracial and gender stratification, physical attractiveness is relatively understudied. In particular, little is known about whether returns to physical attractiveness vary by race or significantly vary by race and gender combined. In this study, we use nationally representative data to examine whether (1) socially perceived physical attractiveness is unequally distributed across race/ethnicity and gender subgroups and (2) returns to physical attractiveness vary significantly across race/ethnicity and gender subgroups. Notably, the magnitude of the earnings disparities along the perceived attractiveness continuum, net of controls, rivals and/or exceeds in magnitude the black-white race gap and, among African-Americans, the black-white race gap and the gender gap in earnings. The implications of these findings for current and future research on the labor market and social inequality are discussed.

Ungated version.