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Mirror, mirror on the wall: The effect of time spent grooming on wages

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Author Info

  • Jayoti Das

    () (Department of Economics, Elon University)

  • Stephen B. DeLoach

    () (Department of Economics, Elon University)

Abstract

It is well understood that personal grooming provides an important source of communication about individuals, their values and personalities. From an economic point of view, grooming is a non-market activity. The standard view is that time spent in non-market activities is counterproductive as it reduces work effort and job commitment. But grooming is different. There is reason to believe that certain productive personality traits may be inferred on the basis of personal grooming. Using data from the American Time Use survey, we investigate whether workers who spend more time grooming earn higher wages. The evidence shows that while higher levels of grooming time increases wages for men, there is no significant effect on women’s wages. We also find evidence that the returns to grooming are even larger for minority males.

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File URL: http://org.elon.edu/econ/WPS/wp2008-01r2.pdf
File Function: Revised version, 2009-06-08
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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Elon University, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number 2008-01.

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Length: 27 pages
Date of creation: Feb 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:elo:wpaper:2008-01

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  1. Hamermesh, Daniel S & Biddle, Jeff E, 1994. "Beauty and the Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1174-94, December.
  2. Hersch, Joni, 1991. "The Impact of Nonmarket Work on Market Wages," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 157-60, May.
  3. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-54, July.
  4. Mobius, Markus & Rosenblat, Tanya, 2010. "Why Beauty Matters," Staff General Research Papers 32112, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
  5. Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Meng, Xin & Zhang, Junsen, 2002. "Dress for success--does primping pay?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 361-373, July.
  6. Rosenblat, Tanya & Mobius, Markus, 2006. "Why Beauty Matters," Scholarly Articles 3043406, Harvard University Department of Economics.
  7. Joni Hersch & Leslie S. Stratton, 1997. "Housework, Fixed Effects, and Wages of Married Workers," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(2), pages 285-307.
  8. Joni Hersch & Leslie S. Stratton, 2002. "Housework and Wages," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(1), pages 217-229.
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Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Men, start grooming!
    by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2008-01-17 08:08:00
  2. The American Time Use Survey and Economic Imperialism?
    by Dan Hirschman in A (Budding) Sociologist's Commonplace Book on 2008-02-29 21:13:00

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  1. Economic Logic blog

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