So, I was interested to read this 2008 article by Hung-Lin Tao (Soochow University), published in the journal Kyklos (ungated). Tao used data from 6,452 Taiwanese female college students in 2003, who were surveyed again in 2004-2005 about their earnings (among other things). The sample was limited to female students because compulsory military service in Taiwan meant that most of the men in the sample were not working at the time of the survey. Respondents to the survey were asked about their height, weight, and self-perceived attractiveness ('satisfied' or 'unsatisfied' with their looks).
Looking at employment status, Tao found that people who were more satisfied with their looks were significantly more likely to be in graduate study or in full-time work (compared with being unemployed), and taller people were significantly more likely to be in graduate study than unemployed. There were no significant effects for weight (relative to the unemployed). In terms of earnings, they found that:
...a 1% increase in height leads to a 0.41% increase in the entry wage. College graduates who perceive themselves as good-looking earn about 3.4% more than those who perceive themselves as plain-looking. The coefficients of the BMI logarithm and its square are positive and negative, respectively, and are significant at the 10% level. These two BMI coefficients imply that the optimal BMI is about 20.09.The term "leads to" implies causality, but there is no causal interpretation here - this is merely a correlation. Taller people, and those who are more satisfied with their looks, earn more than shorter people and those who are less satisfied with their looks.
Tao then goes on to compare the size of these effects with corresponding effects based on the quality of education (as proxied by the type of college the person went to), and finds that the effect of schooling is much larger. I find these results less compelling though, because it is hard to compare the effect of being 1% (or even 10%) taller, with the effect of going to a private college rather than a public college. What is the meaningful comparison here? Both effects are statistically significant, and that is what matters.
Setting aside the self-reported nature of attractiveness, it is interesting that both height and attractiveness are both statistically significant and positively correlated with earnings. Clearly, they are not both picking up the same effect. It would be interesting to see some further analyses on other datasets, which include objective (rather than self-reported) measures of both height and attractiveness, and see whether this holds up to further scrutiny.
Read more:
- The beauty premium in undergraduate study is small, and more attractive women major in economics
- The beauty premium in the LPGA
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