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Beauty and Job Accessibility: New Evidence from a Field Experiment

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Listed:
  • Deng, Weiguang
  • Li, Dayang
  • Zhou, Dong

Abstract

This study uses a field experiment to resolve the difficulties of quantifying personal appearance and identify a direct causal relationship between appearance and employment in China. The experiment reveals that taste-based pure appearance discrimination exists at the pre-interview stage. There are significant gender-specific heterogeneous effects of education on appearance discrimination: having better educational credentials reduces appearance discrimination among men but not among women. Moreover, attributes of the labor market, companies, and vacancies matter. Beauty premiums are larger in big cities with higher concentrations of women and in male-focused research positions. Similarly, the beauty premium is larger for vacancies with higher remuneration.

Suggested Citation

  • Deng, Weiguang & Li, Dayang & Zhou, Dong, 2019. "Beauty and Job Accessibility: New Evidence from a Field Experiment," GLO Discussion Paper Series 369, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:369
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Cited by:

    1. David Ong, 2022. "The college admissions contribution to the labor market beauty premium," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(3), pages 491-512, July.
    2. 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.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    appearance discrimination; beauty premium; pre-interview stage; field experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

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