Using interviewers' ratings of respondents' physical appearance this study examined the relationship between physical attractiveness and wages treating the former as marginal to a baseline, human-capital derived equation. To test the hypotheses about the consequences of physical attractiveness alone or conditioned by other factors on earnings and wage growth we estimated wage and wage growth equations using 3 cross-sectional and 3 panel data sets derived from the Canadian Quality of Life survey. The cross-sectional estimates indicated that the effect of physical attractiveness on earnings was a plausible one and likely to be conditioned by other characteristics such as firm size, occupation, union membership, frequency of on-the-job supervision, and level of formal schooling. The 'above average' rated workers received pay premia ranging from +2.2% to 6.1% while those 'below average' received pay penalties ranging from-2.7% to -13.0% relative to the grand mean. The 'average' rated workers received pay penalties ranging from -0.7% to -3.4%. The main source of these wage differentials appears to be discrimination based on looks. The results of panel specifications also provided some support for the notion that physical attractiveness ratings were associated with differential wage growth and that the relationship between physical attractiveness and wage growth might be moderated by other individual or institutional characteristics of the workers, especially before adjustments for the lagged effects of wages were made. Overall, these results provide a moderate level of support for the thesis that physical attractiveness plays a role in the wage determination process in modern labour markets.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.34982 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Kaczorowski, Janusz. |
| Contributors | Rytina, S. (advisor), van den Berg, A. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Sociology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001641380, proquestno: NQ44470, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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