IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/18123.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Tall or Taller, Pretty or Prettier: Is Discrimination Absolute or Relative?

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel S. Hamermesh

Abstract

Using several microeconomic data sets from the United States and the Netherlands, and the examples of height and beauty, this study examines whether: 1) Absolute or relative differences in a characteristic are what affect labor-market and other outcomes; and 2) The effects of a characteristic change when all agents acquire more of it--become taller or better-looking. Confronted with a choice among individuals, decision-makers respond more to absolute than to relative differences among them. Also, an increase in the mean of a characteristic's distribution does not alter market responses to differences in it.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2012. "Tall or Taller, Pretty or Prettier: Is Discrimination Absolute or Relative?," NBER Working Papers 18123, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18123
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w18123.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fryer Roland & Jackson Matthew O., 2008. "A Categorical Model of Cognition and Biased Decision Making," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-44, February.
    2. Craig E. Landry & Andreas Lange & John A. List & Michael K. Price & Nicholas G. Rupp, 2006. "Toward an Understanding of the Economics of Charity: Evidence from a Field Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 747-782.
    3. Hamermesh, Daniel S., 2006. "Changing looks and changing "discrimination": The beauty of economists," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 93(3), pages 405-412, December.
    4. Joni Hersch, 2008. "Profiling the New Immigrant Worker: The Effects of Skin Color and Height," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(2), pages 345-386, April.
    5. Markus M. Mobius & Tanya S. Rosenblat, 2006. "Why Beauty Matters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 222-235, March.
    6. Berggren, Niclas & Jordahl, Henrik & Poutvaara, Panu, 2010. "The looks of a winner: Beauty and electoral success," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 8-15, February.
    7. Hamermesh, Daniel S & Biddle, Jeff E, 1994. "Beauty and the Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1174-1194, December.
    8. Nicola Persico & Andrew Postlewaite & Dan Silverman, 2004. "The Effect of Adolescent Experience on Labor Market Outcomes: The Case of Height," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 1019-1053, October.
    9. Anne Case & Christina Paxson, 2008. "Stature and Status: Height, Ability, and Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(3), pages 499-532, June.
    10. Daniel J. Benjamin & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2009. "Thin-Slice Forecasts of Gubernatorial Elections," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(3), pages 523-536, August.
    11. James J. Heckman, 1998. "Detecting Discrimination," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 101-116, Spring.
    12. Altonji, Joseph G. & Blank, Rebecca M., 1999. "Race and gender in the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 48, pages 3143-3259, Elsevier.
    13. Michèle Belot & V. Bhaskar & Jeroen van de Ven, 2012. "Beauty and the Sources of Discrimination," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(3), pages 851-872.
    14. John Komlos & Benjamin E. Lauderdale, 2007. "Underperformance in Affluence: The Remarkable Relative Decline in U.S. Heights in the Second Half of the 20th Century," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 88(2), pages 283-305, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Doorley, Karina & Sierminska, Eva, 2012. "Myth or Fact? The Beauty Premium across the Wage Distribution," IZA Discussion Papers 6674, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Mathieu Bunel & Jean-Pascal Guironnet, 2017. "Income inequalities for recently graduated French workers: a multilevel modeling approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 755-778, September.
    3. Coffey, Stephanie & Schwartz, Amy Ellen, 2025. "Towering Intellects? Sizing up the relationship between height and academic success," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    4. Thompson, Kristina & Portrait, France & Schoonmade, Linda, 2023. "The height premium: A systematic review and meta-analysis," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    5. Peng, Langchuan & Wang, Xi & Ying, Shanshan, 2020. "The heterogeneity of beauty premium in China: Evidence from CFPS," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 386-396.
    6. Tom Lane, 2020. "Along which identity lines does 21st-century Britain divide? Evidence from Big Brother," Rationality and Society, , vol. 32(2), pages 197-222, May.
    7. Lee, Wang-Sheng, 2014. "Big and Tall: Is there a Height Premium or Obesity Penalty in the Labor Market?," IZA Discussion Papers 8606, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Elif S. Filiz, 2022. "Does it Payoff to be Blond in a Non-Blond Neighborhood? Eye Color, Hair Color, Ethnic Composition and Starting Wages," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 122-146, January.
    2. Bhaskar, Venkataraman & Belot, Michèle & Van de Ven, Jeroen, 2007. "Insidious Discrimination? Disentangling the Beauty Premium on a Game Show," CEPR Discussion Papers 6276, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Böckerman, Petri & Vainiomäki, Jari, 2013. "Stature and life-time labor market outcomes: Accounting for unobserved differences," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 86-96.
    4. Hersch, Joni, 2011. "Skin color, physical appearance, and perceived discriminatory treatment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 671-678.
    5. Eiji Yamamura & Ryohei Hayashi & Yoshiro Tsutsui & Fumio Ohtake, 2022. "Racers’ attractive looks, popularity, and performance: how do speedboat racers react to fans’ expectations?," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 73(4), pages 597-623, October.
    6. Ongena, S. & Popov, A., 2013. "Take Care Of Home And Family, Honey, And Let Me Take Care Of The Money. Gender Bias And Credit Market Barriers For Female Entrepreneurs," Other publications TiSEM 6e4843b2-e333-48f5-bf18-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Ying Cao & Feng Guan & Zengquan Li & Yong George Yang, 2020. "Analysts’ Beauty and Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(9), pages 4315-4335, September.
    8. Francesco Cinnirella & Joachim Winter, 2009. "Size Matters! Body Height and Labor Market Discrimination: A Cross-European Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 2733, CESifo.
    9. Deryugina, Tatyana & Shurchkov, Olga, 2015. "Now you see it, now you don’t: The vanishing beauty premium," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 331-345.
    10. Chan, Ho Fai & Ulrich, Fabian & Altman, Hannah & Schmidt, Sascha L. & Schreyer, Dominik & Torgler, Benno, 2022. "Beyond performance? The importance of subjective and objective physical appearance in award nominations and receptions in football," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 271-289.
    11. Steven Ongena & Alexander Popov, 2016. "Gender Bias and Credit Access," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(8), pages 1691-1724, December.
    12. Lee, Wang-Sheng, 2014. "Big and Tall: Is there a Height Premium or Obesity Penalty in the Labor Market?," IZA Discussion Papers 8606, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Astghik Mavisakalyan, 2016. "Looks matter: Attractiveness and employment in the former soviet union," Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre Working Paper series WP1604, Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School.
    14. Arunachalam Raj & Shah Manisha, 2012. "The Prostitute's Allure: The Return to Beauty in Commercial Sex Work," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-27, December.
    15. Wilson, Nicholas & Janicki, Martha, 2016. "A cut above the rest? Private anthropometrics in marriage markets," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 164-179.
    16. Mavisakalyan, Astghik, 2018. "Do employers reward physical attractiveness in transition countries?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 38-52.
    17. Niclas Berggren & Henrik Jordahl & Panu Poutvaara, 2010. "The Right Look: Conservative Politicians Look Better and their Voters Reward it," CESifo Working Paper Series 3310, CESifo.
    18. Dechter, Evgenia Kogan, 2015. "Physical appearance and earnings, hair color matters," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 15-26.
    19. Suyong Song & Stephen S. Baek, 2019. "Shape Matters: Evidence from Machine Learning on Body Shape-Income Relationship," Papers 1906.06747, arXiv.org.
    20. Rees, Daniel I. & Sabia, Joseph J. & Argys, Laura M., 2009. "A head above the rest: Height and adolescent psychological well-being," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 217-228, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • J78 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Public Policy (including comparable worth)

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18123. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.