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Image isn’t everything: Personality attractiveness, physical attractiveness, and self-employment earnings

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Abstract

Complementing studies on physical attractiveness and labor market outcomes, we use the information on physical and personality attractiveness rated by interviewers from four waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (ADD Health) for 1,485 individuals (73 female and 60 male self-employed). Though neither physical attractiveness nor personality attractiveness is related to self-employment earnings individually, females who are self-employed with both physical attractiveness and personality attractiveness have higher earnings. There are no effects of both attractiveness types for males (employed or self-employed) or females (employed) on earnings.

Plain English Summary

We examine how physical attractiveness and personality attractiveness relate to performance in self-employment. Interestingly, we did not find that either physical attractiveness or personality attractiveness individually had any significant relationship with earnings for self-employed individuals. However, we did find that self-employed females who are both physically attractive and have attractive personalities did have significantly higher earnings. There were no significant effects on earning for either self-employed or employed males who were both physically attractive and had attractive personalities or for employed females with both forms of attractiveness. These results add nuance to prior research regarding the potential beauty premium that could play a role in key aspects of performance for those who are self-employed. Specifically, our findings highlight the need to consider both physical and personality traits for females who are considering, or are currently pursuing, self-employment.

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Notes

  1. The industry codes are based on the Census Bureau’s 2012 classification and available at: https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/guidance/industry-occupation/census-2012-final-code-list.xls

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  1. Marcus T. Wolfe and Pankaj C. Patel contributed equally to this work.

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  1. G. Brint Ryan College of Business, University of North Texas, 1307 W Highland St, Denton, TX, 76201, USA

    Marcus T. Wolfe

  2. Villanova University, 800 E. Lancaster Ave.Villanova, Villanova, PA, 19085, USA

    Pankaj C. Patel

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  1. Marcus T. Wolfe
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Wolfe, M.T., Patel, P.C. Image isn’t everything: Personality attractiveness, physical attractiveness, and self-employment earnings. Small Bus Econ 62, 807–831 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-023-00784-0

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