Science has identified how much more beautiful people make compared to everyone else

The beauty premium — the advantage that attractive people have over the rest of us in the job market — not only affects individual earnings, but it may also have a major impact on family income as well. 

In a new study published in the Plos One journal, researchers from the University of Iowa determined that workers with “desirable features” (marked by height for men and weight for women) earn hundreds of dollars more than those without them. This discrepancy is more pronounced for female participants.

How your physical shape impacts your income

According to the data, a one-centimeter increase in height for a man who earns $70,000 annually is associated with a $998 increase in family income, and a one-unit decrease in BMI is associated with a $934 increase in family income for a female who earns $70,000 a year.

“The findings showed that there is a statistically significant relationship between physical appearance and family income and that these associations differ across genders,” said Suyong Song, an associate professor at The University of Iowa and co-author of the new report.

Beauty and the Benjamins 

The US Census Bureau defines family income as the total gross earnings before taxes received within a 12-month period by all members of a household above the age of 15.

The relevant factors primarily include salary, Social Security, retirement earnings, investment income, and welfare payments. The authors behind the new report were able to gauge how attractiveness affects each of these factors.

“One of the challenges is how researchers overcome reporting errors in body measures such as height or weight, as most previous studies often defined physical appearance from subjective opinions based on surveys,” Song continued. 

He and his colleagues instead relied on three-dimensional body scans that measured fat, muscle, bone mass, and height.

Consistently, stature helped men secure higher earnings for their families while weight decreased household earnings for women workers in the US.

Why the beauty premium exists

Previously conducted research has shown that the beauty premium affects nearly every industry in the U.S.—every component too, from the hiring process to salary negotiations. 

The why does this happen has been debated for some time among economists. A leading theory suggests confidence plays a huge role. 

Researchers at the University of Michigan explored this in great detail in a recent paper titled, “Why Beauty Matters.”

“Physically attractive workers are substantially more confident and worker confidence in return increases wages under oral interaction,” the authors wrote in the report.

The halo effect and social skills

This is what is known as the halo effect. When we see sharply dressed, traditionally attractive people, we tend to project competence on them. Moreover, the authors note that attractive people more often than not demonstrate better social skills than those who are not considered to be traditionally attractive. These same social skills likely come in handy during job interviews and salary negotiations.

The authors additionally examine some changes that could be made to the labor market to reduce the beauty premium’s effect on wage and family income in the US. 

The researchers suggest more blind interviews be conducted to lessen bias. Perhaps more phone interviews should be conducted but in the Zoom era that seems unlikely.