The impact of lookism on employment decisions: evidence from China

• Date: 19 September 2023
• Pages: 188-210
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-12-2022-0359
• Published date: 19 September 2023
• Author: Yuanlu Niu

The impact of lookism on

employment decisions: evidence

from China

Yuanlu Niu

Department of Counseling, Leadership, and Research Methods,

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a facial photo of female job applicants on

employment decisions.

Design/methodology/approach –A laboratory or “controlled”experiment was conducted to examine the

impacts of job applicants’facial photos, job applicants’professional qualifications (education level and years of

work experience), raters’gender and college student raters’academic year on employment-related decisions in

a hypothetical situationin theChinese context.A descriptive analysis and mixed-design factorial ANOVA were

conducted.

Findings –Significant main effects were found for the applicant’s photo and professional qualifications in the

analysis of employment decisions. Significant interaction effects were also found in the analysis.

Originality/value –Discrimination against applicants who attached unattractive photos was more

pronounced for the interview decision when the applicants had low qualifications than when they had high

qualifications. Although both male and female raters’ratings of the interview, hiring and salary decisions

decreased as attractiveness decreased, it was more pronounced for male raters than female raters.

Keywords Appearance discrimination, Lookism, Facial attractiveness, Gender, Employment decision, China

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Lookism is a growing issue in the modern workplace. Lookism, known as discrimination

against physical appearance or attractiveness bias, refers to “preferential treatment of those

considered to be attractive and discrimination against those deemed less physically

desirable”(Sims, 2015, p. 106). A beautiful physical appearance grants privilege in

workplaces, where those who have preferred physical features have more opportunities to be

retained and promoted (Sims, 2014). An attractive person tends to be treated very well and

receives extra attention, while a person who is described as plain-looking may be treated very

differently in the workplace (James, 2008). For example, discrimination against physical

appearance has been shown to affect employers’judgment about the quality of employees

(Simorangkir, 2013). Job applicants may also be negatively impacted by lookism, which could

result in unethical recruitment and hiring practices (Chiu and Babcock, 2002). In addition,

physical attractiveness can influence an employee’s salary given that attractive employees

typically earn more than their less attractive peers (Bruton, 2015).

In many Asian countries, including China, there is neither a clear statutory definition of

what constitutes illegal lookism nor meaningful legislation on how to address it (Niu et al.,

2021b). Therefore, lookism is widely accepted in the Chinese workplace. It is normal to see

EDI

43,2

188

Author note: The manuscript is developed based on some parts of the author’s dissertation (Niu, 2018).

The author extended the data analysis by including more variables beyond her dissertation.

Citation: Niu, (2018). How facial attractiveness of Chinese female applicants affects the decisions

regarding a hypothetical employment evaluation. Dissertations. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/

dissertations/1562

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-7149.htm

Received 25 December 2022

Revised 28 June 2023

Accepted 25 August 2023

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 43 No. 2, 2024

pp. 188-210

© Emerald Publishing Limited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-12-2022-0359

appearance requirements in Chinese job advertisements such as “age,”“good image”and

“height”(Niu et al., 2021a, p. 5). Employers require that job applicants attach a photograph to

their resumes because they consider physical attractiveness a valid selection criterion (Niu

et al., 2021b). Appearance-based discrimination is also “sex [gender] discrimination”

(Friedricks, 2015, p. 503) because women suffer from lookism more than men (Chiu and

Babcock, 2002;Adomaitis et al., 2017). Physical appearance discrimination based on gender is

common in the workplace in China (Lu, 2009). For example, men are more likely to be hired

than women, and pretty women have more advantages than plain-looking women in the

hiring process in China (Wen, 2009).

Lookism impacts not only employees but also the entire workplace. Qualified employees

may be screened out in the application process based on lookism in the workplace; as a result,

the quality of the workforce pool will decrease (Kanter, 2011). Even worse, people may work

to improve their physical appearance rather than their professional performance and skills.

Over time, the professional quality of the workforce will decline. However, very few studies

have explored physical appearance discrimination in the employment process in China.

Therefore, it is important to increase awareness of gender-based lookism in the Chinese

workplace so people realize the risk and harm of lookism. With increased awareness, they

may be willing to eliminate illegal physical appearance discrimination.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a facial photo of female job

applicants on employment decisions. The author examined the impacts of job applicants’

facial photo, job applicants’professional qualifications (education level and years of work

experience), raters’gender and raters’academic year on raters’decision to interview and hire

and salary decisions in a hypothetical situation. The following two research questions guided

this study:

RQ1. How does the facial photo of a female job applicant affect employment decisions in a

hypothetical situation?

RQ2. What are the interactions among the variables (i.e. raters’gender, college student

raters’academic year, job applicants’facial photo and job applicants’professional

qualifications) affect employment decisions in a hypothetical situation?

Theoretical background and literature review

What is beautiful is good

“What is beautiful is good”(Dion et al., 1972, p. 285) is one of the most widely cited theories on

physical attractiveness. The “what is beautiful is good”stereotype, known as the physical

attractiveness stereotype, suggests that people attribute physically attractive appearance to

other unrelated positive characteristics (Dion et al., 1972). For example, people believed that

attractive individuals had better social skills and were more cooperative (Mehrabian and

Blum, 1997;Mulford et al., 1998). As a result, the authors argued that attractive individuals

were more likely to have prestigious jobs, high incomes and happy and healthy lives.

The halo effect (Myers, 1999) explains the “what is beautiful is good”bias. According to

the halo effect, employers use the physical attractiveness of an employee as a criterion in the

employment evaluation. Specifically, physical attractiveness influences employers’

perceptions of the employee on criteria, such as the employee’s abilities and qualifications

(Mahajan, 2007). Physical attractiveness can be a dimension of evaluating personality

(Ashmore, 1981). The stereotype of attractiveness processed as personal information can be

conceptualized in terms of implicit personality theory (Eagly et al., 1991), which implicit

personality theory contends that people are stereotyped based on categorical assumptions

that are related to physical characteristics (Ashmore, 1981). Abel et al. (2009) argued that

physical attractiveness, as a physical characteristic, could also be linked to other dimensions

The impact of

lookism on

employment

decisions

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