The effect of gender and creativity on beauty premium on hiring decisions in Malaysia: Do male and female hirers weigh them differently?

Abstract

The presence of a beauty premium in the labor market has been convincingly demonstrated in developed countries, although studies examining this issue in other countries have been few. Additionally, two related issues remain unclear: (i) Does the beauty premium have the same effect on the preferences of male and female personnel in charge of hiring? (ii) Does the interaction of attractiveness with creativity influence their evaluation differently? This study investigates the issues above in the context of a non-western country. A field experiment was conducted and the data were analyzed using regressions to test the interaction of the three factors (attractiveness, creativity and gender). We found that in common with findings elsewhere beauty is still used to decide who to hire, when no additional information is available, regardless of the gender of the hiring personnel. However, when information on creativity becomes available, male hirers give priority to it while female hirers continue to emphasize good looks. The reasons for this difference and whether or not this finding is unique to Malaysia are worth investigating in future studies.

Keywords:

• Beauty Premium
• Creativity
• Field Experiment
• Gender
• Human Resources
• Labour Market

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kean-Siang Ch’ng

Dr Chng is an applied micro-economist, with research and interests in behavioral and experimental economics. His works include work place discrimination, group behavior, market design, individual decision making among others. He has been working as senior and associate professor in Universiti Sains Malaysia since 2008. His recent publications are J. of Environmental Economics and Management, Malaysia Journal of Economics, Institutions and Economies among others. He can be contacted at email [email protected]

Suresh Narayanan

Suresh Narayanan is a Professor of Economics at the School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia. He also served as the Coordinator of its International Studies programme. He holds bachelor and master degrees in economics from the University of Malaya and obtained his Ph.D. from Boston University, USA. He was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, USA (1990/91) and spent short stints as a visiting professor at the El Colegio de Mexico, the College of Europe, Tubingen University and Chulalongkorn University. He has consulted for international agencies like the World Bank, International Labor Organization (ILO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Asian Development Bank (ADB), and Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), as well as national agencies like the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) of the Prime Minister’s Dept., Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Labour. He is the author of the book, The Value Added Tax in Malaysia (ISIS, 1991. . . ), co-authored a study on Technology Transfer to Malaysia (UNDP, 1994), co-edited two volumes on Malaysian Industrialization and edited a popular Managerial Economics text. His publications cover the areas of fiscal policy, taxation, labour, innovation and illicit drug use.