Human beauty illustrates the economic impact of heritable physical traits

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hamermesh, Daniel S.; Zhang, Anwen
• 署名单位: University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; IZA Institute Labor Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Glasgow; Southwestern University of Finance & Economics - China
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-10375
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2418424122
• 发表日期: 2025-02-11
• 关键词: intergenerational transmission; facial attractiveness; mobility; CONSEQUENCES; outcomes

摘要

Intergenerational transmission of inequality is a central question in the social sciences.We use one trait, beauty, to infer how much parents' physical characteristics transmitinequality across generations. Analyses of a large-scale longitudinal dataset in theUnited States, and a much smaller dataset of Chinese parents and children, show thatincreases in parents' looks are associated with increases in their child's looks. A largedataset of U.S. siblings shows a positive correlation of their beauty. The appropriateweighted average from the three samples shows that a one SD increase in ratings ofboth parents' looks is associated with a 0.25 SD increase in their child's. Coupling theseestimates with those from large literatures measuring the impact of beauty on earningsand the intergenerational elasticity of income suggests that a one SD difference inparents' looks is correlated with a 0.074 SD difference in their adult child's earnings,about U.S. $2,170 annually.