The higher price of whiter skin: an analysis of escort services

ABSTRACT

How much are people willing to pay extra for sexual services with a white woman instead of one with darker skin? Skin colour assessed from photographs of women on escort websites in Mexico was compared with price information to answer this question. Women with darker skin were found to be underrepresented, consistent with self-selection into other occupations with an expectation of higher wages. Lighter-skinned escorts also charge more than darker women. Controlling for estimated age and physical measures like weight, hair colour, and body type, a one standard deviation increase in darkness reduces an escort’s price by approximately 10 percent.

KEYWORDS:

• Wage differentials
• skin colour
• prostitution
• Mexico

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• C80
• J16
• J30
• J70
• O54

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for research assistance from Paulina Bouchot, Daniel Cordova, Hiram Escobar, Miguel Ángel Peña, and Emilio Ramos, and especially Alejandro Gomez, Sergio Lopez, Raul Murga, and Carolina Rivas Herrera. I thank a reviewer and the editor for helpful comments and suggestions. All errors and omissions are the sole responsibility of the author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

¹ One important limitation of this study is that the sample includes only data from major websites and women who responded to our price requests. As in previous studies, it is not possible to corroborate the representativeness of this sample for all escorts that advertise on the internet in Mexico.

² Indeed, Table S4 shows an underreporting in self-reported measures of age, weight, and body measurements, as compared with those estimated by the evaluators. In the case of bust size, there is an apparent over reporting for women estimated at less than 90 cm.

³ The nature of the work was explained to research assistants before showing them any photographs. They were offered the opportunity to assist with a different research project if they felt uncomfortable. If they agreed to participate, they received training with real photographs.

⁴ I obtain Cronbach’s alpha and the Loevinger H coefficient for each measure as well as for skin colour. Average alpha across measures is 0.85 (minimum value 0.83). Average H is 0.58 (minimum value 0.49).

⁵ For hair colour, there was a majority vote for 86% of the sample, and for body type there was a majority vote for 70% of the sample.

⁶ The computer program decomposes the colours in the picture into an RGB scale (red-green-blue). It then matches these numbers with a number on the PERLA scale. The disadvantage of this method is that it depends on the quality of the photograph: shadows and lighting affect the program’s analysis.

⁷ According to the Intergenerational Social Mobility Survey 2016 (MMSI) and the National Discrimination Survey 2017 (ENADIS), both conducted by INEGI.

⁸ Previous studies have shown that skin colour is related to wealth as well as to years of schooling. It is possible that the underrepresentation of white women in the escort market is partially due to the availability of other more profitable activities as well as social norms related to wealth.