A new study published in PLOS One found a link between a person’s body shape and their family income. The results provide further evidence of the “beauty bonus,” a phenomenon in which physically attractive people tend to earn more than less attractive counterparts. Researchers have found consistent evidence for the beauty premium, but Suyong Song, an associate professor at the University of Iowa, and colleagues found that the measurements used to measure physical appearance had some significant limitations.
“I was curious to know whether or not the results of the labor market have a premium on physical attractiveness. One of the challenges is how researchers overcome reporting errors in body measurements such as height or weight, as most previous studies have often defined physical appearance based on subjective opinions based on surveys, “said Song.
“The other challenge is to define the body shapes from these body measures, as these measurements are too simple to give a complete description of the body shapes. In this study, in collaboration with one of my co-authors (Stephen Baek of the University of Virginia), we use novel data that includes three-dimensional scans of the whole body. We’re addressing these concerns with a cutting-edge machine learning technique known as a graphical autoencoder”. Researchers used deep machine learning methods to identify key physical features in full-body scans of 2,383 North Americans.
The data comes from the Civilian American and European Surface Anthropometry Resource (CAESAR) project, a study conducted primarily by the U.S. Air Force from 1998 to 2000. The dataset included detailed demographic information, tape measure and caliper body measurements, and digital three-dimensional digital whole body participant scans.
“The results showed that there was a statistically significant association between physical appearance and family income, and that these associations differed between the sexes,” Song told PsyPost. “In particular, the height of men has a positive effect on family income, while obesity in women has a negative effect on family income.”
The researchers estimated that “a one-centimeter increase in height (converted to height) is associated with an increase in family income of about $ 998 for a man earning $ 70,000 of median family income.” For women, the researchers estimated that “1 unit decrease in obesity (converted to BMI) is associated with an increase in household income of approximately $ 934 for a woman with a household income of $ 70,000.” The results show that the premium for physical attractiveness persists and the relationship between body shape and family income is heterogeneous between the sexes, ”said Song.
“Our results also highlight the importance of correctly measuring body shape in order to provide adequate public policies to improve health care and reduce discrimination and prejudice in the labor market. We suggest that (1) efforts should be made to raise awareness of such ethical / non-discrimination discrimination in on-the-job training; and (2) mechanisms should be promoted to minimize bias intrusion during the hiring and promotion process, such as blind interviews.
The new study avoids a major limitation of previous research that relied on self-reported attractiveness and body mass index calculations that do not distinguish between fat, muscle or bone mass. But the new study has an important caveat of its own. “An important caveat is that the dataset only includes household income and not individual income. This opens up additional channels through which physical appearance could affect household income, ”said Song. “In this study we have the combined relationship between body shape and family income in the labor market and marriage market. Therefore, further research with a new survey on individual income would be an interesting direction for future research.”
Source link
