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Body shape matters: Evidence from machine learning on body shape-income relationship
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Body shape matters: Evidence from machine learning on body shape-income relationship

Suyong Song and Stephen Baek
PloS one, Vol.16(7), pp.e0254785-e0254785
07/30/2021
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0254785
PMCID: PMC8323889
PMID: 34329322
url
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254785View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

The association between physical appearance and income has been of central interest in social science. However, most previous studies often measured physical appearance using classical proxies from subjective opinions based on surveys. In this study, we use novel data, called CAESAR, which contains three-dimensional (3D) whole-body scans to mitigate possible reporting and measurement errors. We demonstrate the existence of significant nonclassical reporting errors in the reported heights and weights by comparing them with measured counterparts, and show that these discrete measurements are too sparse to provide a complete description of the body shape. Instead, we use a graphical autoencoder to obtain intrinsic features, consisting of human body shapes directly from 3D scans and estimate the relationship between body shapes and family income. We also take into account a possible issue of endogenous body shapes using proxy variables and control functions. The estimation results reveal a statistically significant relationship between physical appearance and family income and that these associations differ across genders. This supports the hypothesis on the physical attractiveness premium in labor market outcomes and its heterogeneity across genders.
 Multidisciplinary Sciences Science & Technology Science & Technology - Other Topics

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