Social critics routinely criticize Western culture as being racist, sexist, xenophobic, and more recently, ageist and “lookist,” the latter being the widely asserted preference within our society for the more attractive over the less attractive, especially regarding women. Some of these “problems,” including racism, xenophobia, and ageism, have been enshrined in legislative findings, and others such as lookism are beginning to work their way into agency regulations or enforcement guides.
Rather than accept these tendencies, it sometimes pays to examine underlying assumptions (especially those that have not yet become law). Two recent news reports raise the question of whether apparent discriminations are factual or whether other, less invidious factors are at work.
How Important Is Physical Attraction?
First, a recent study undertaken by economists at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University sought to test the assumption that physical attractiveness was a “plus” in employment. Researchers identified several persons with ambiguous ethnic characteristics to eliminate or reduce possible ethnic preferences. Two photographs of each person were selected ― one showing an attractive side and the other a “plain looking” side. Identical employment applications were sent to employers. Some were sent without pictures, while others were sent with either the attractive or unattractive picture of the same individual.
Interestingly, almost 20 percent of male applicants whose applications were accompanied by an “attractive” photograph were called back for an interview. Only 13.7 percent of identical applicants that submitted a plain picture were called back. Less than 10 percent of the male applicants without pictures were called back. That seemed to support the claim of lookism ― but among males
Quite surprisingly, however, almost 17 percent of women whose applications didn’t contain a photograph were called back, applications accompanied by “plain” photographs received a call-back response of 13.6 percent, and women whose applications were accompanied by attractive photographs were called back only 12.8 percent of the time. Although the difference between attractive and unattractive wasn’t statistically significant, the difference between the call-back rates for applications with photographs and those without was deemed statistically significant.
After further analysis, the researchers suspected that since the initial screening of employment applications was typically done by a relatively young woman, jealousy toward more attractive women might be one factor. In addition, however, they believe that including a photograph seemed to show confidence on a male candidate’s part, increasing the call-back rate, whereas a woman who included a photograph was viewed negatively, possibly attempting to market herself on the basis of appearance.
Although this is only one study, it may suggest that the common assumptions regarding appearance are far less strong than thought and the fear of being guilty of lookism may push hiring decisions in the opposite direction.
Are Immigrants Discriminated Against?
It’s also widely assumed that native-born applicants have an employment advantage over immigrants. In the second study, statistics recently collected and analyzed by the Pew Hispanic Center showed that in the previous 18 months, employment levels of foreign-born workers increased by 656,000, while employment among native-born workers fell by almost 1.2 million jobs. This discrepancy is even more intriguing since job-loss percentages for immigrant and native-born workers during the employment downturn were similar. For some unknown reason, immigrants appear to have a “head start on restoring their labor market status.”
This study was only a statistical analysis, not a study that analyzed causes. It does, however, call into question the automatic assumption that employers routinely discriminate against immigrant workers.
J. Robert Brame is a partner with McGuireWoods LLP, working in the firm’s Charlottesville, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., offices. In addition to 40 years of employment law litigation experience, Brame served as a member of the National Labor Relations Board for three years. He now represents clients before the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor, as well as before grand juries, trial courts, and appellate courts. He may be contacted at rbrame@mcguirewoods.com.
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