ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 11, 1996 TAG: 9601110102
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
Most Americans agree that discrimination on racial, sexual or religious grounds is wrong. But what about against people who just happen to be ugly?
That is the issue that Jeff Biddle and Daniel Hamermesh, economists at Michigan State and the University of Texas, respectively, have investigated.
They assay the roots of discrimination against unattractive people, an ill-defined group whose legal claim to protection against discrimination is now being tested in the courts.
And while their study - just published by the National Bureau of Economic Research - probably won't change many minds, it does air the awkward issue of whether employers should shoulder the economic and legal burden of fighting the prejudices of their customers and the community as a whole.
The two labor economists made a splash a few years ago, analyzing a sample of some 7,000 people and finding solid evidence that good looks translated into heftier paychecks. It remains to be seen whether the implied discrimination is illegal.
Although many people dismiss the idea out of hand, unattractiveness may well fit the definition of disability in the Americans With Disabilities Act as ``a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.''
In 1993 a federal court upheld a jury award to a woman who had been discharged solely because she was fat.
Now Biddle and Hamermesh are back with a study of some 2,000 graduates from a ``highly selective'' (but unnamed) law school that closely followed the careers of its alumni. The results confirmed the earlier study.
But even more importantly, detailed information about workers in a single profession offers a chance to examine the motives for discrimination apart from the charged atmosphere surrounding race and gender.
The researchers measured attractiveness on a scale of one to five, based on a panel's rating of head-and-shoulder photos printed in booklets at the time of enrollment. Class rank among graduates during the 1970s was not correlated with looks. But after five years in the workplace, those ranked in the top third on attractiveness were earning 9 percent more on average than those in the bottom third. After 15 years this gap had widened to 13 percent.
Common sense suggests that when employers discriminate, it is to satisfy their own prejudices or those of their other employees. But that does not seem to be the case with these lawyers. For one thing, starting salaries were not correlated with looks. For another, the income gap between the most and least attractive was virtually identical for lawyers who were self-employed.
That suggests attractive lawyers are more productive, if only in the sense that clients prefer good-looking attorneys. Biddle and Hamermesh found that a disproportionate number of unattractive lawyers work for public agencies, where the client typically has little say in who does the work.
This sorting process continues from the first to the fifth year after graduation: unattractive lawyers in the private sector tend to switch to government jobs while attractive government lawyers join private firms.
Does it really matter why job discrimination takes place? Many years ago Gary S. Becker, the conservative Nobel economist at the University of Chicago, pointed out that unfettered markets should be a potent weapon against prejudice.
In a free labor market, nonprejudiced employers would be able to hire the disfavored group at bargain wages, permitting them to drive prejudiced competitors out of business.
Competition for talent, for example, probably has something to do with the decisions of Apple Computer and Walt Disney Co. to champion the rights of gay employees.
But discrimination driven by the customers' tastes does not appear to be self-correcting. Law firms that bow to the pressure of the market, hiring Cary Grant types over Alfred E. Neuman lookalikes, will have a competitive edge.
The paradox, Biddle suggests, is that government sanctions on employers are actually most needed when the discrimination is least related to employers' own prejudices.
Robert Topel, an economist at the University of Chicago Business School, is not impressed by this distinction. The logic of job discrimination laws, he argues, is to attain a social goal at the ``lowest possible cost.''
And regardless of the motive for the antisocial behavior, it is easier and less intrusive to penalize employer discrimination than to police prejudiced consumers.
LENGTH: Medium: 81 linesby CNB