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The word discrimination is widely used to criticize actions that disadvantage groups of people because of certain traits such as sex, race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, but also disability, weight, age or genetic constitution (Heinrichs, 2012). In this basic sense, to discriminate against someone is to treat her disadvantageously relative to others because she has or is believed to have some particular feature that those others do not have. In short, discrimination against someone simply is disadvantageous differential treatment. The term lookism won’t be heard or seen in many places but there is an essential research covering the topic. According to (Etcoff, 1999) lookism often defined as beauty prejudice or the discrimination of someone based on their appearance and surely has become an important topic in the professional world. I would say that I am agree with the statement by focusing on these two points which are earnings and occupational differences.
According to a study by (Hamermesh & Biddle, 1998) the Professors of Economics at University of Texas and Michigan State University respectively had shown that there are increasing gap between the salaries of attractive workers in certain industries when compared to their less attractive co-worker. They conducted a study towards the careers of lawyers after graduating from law school and they were aware that there are misusage of pay based on appearance. Based on their research, Hamermesh and Biddle discover that better-looking midcareer attorneys were billing at higher rates, not just billing more hours. This seems to imply attractive attorneys did not have work harder as they simply were being paid more than their average peers. Based on a study towards Canadian citizens (Hamermesh & E.Biddle, 1994), these researchers found out that average looks only receive a pay penalty meanwhile the attractive workers earned one percent to a high estimate of 13%. Looking further to another study by (Harper, 2000) showed that height could be an asset for individuals at workplace. He found out that tall employees received pay premium while those who are short experience received a significant earnings penalty. Hence based on these studies, I truly believe that physical attractiveness of a person positively affects their pay.
It is reasonable to believe that one’s physical attractiveness can help to determine the occupational choice that one makes as a worker. According to a study, attractive women are more likely to participate in managerial/ administrative jobs while the less one likely to choose operative or craftsmen jobs (Liu, 2015). This scenario happened as those with good looking appearance usually had better confidence than the average looking. A further study had been done using law school graduates as sample. They split them into two parts which those who are working in the private sector and the public sector for five and fifteen years after graduation. They then observe the sector-switching pattern based on their attractiveness. Their result came out that the attractive lawyers often ended up and stayed at the private sector after five years than the less attractive ones (Hamermesh & Biddle, 1998). Those with attractive looks will gravitate toward occupations and sectors where their appearance will be rewarded highly otherwise those with average looking move toward occupations and sectors where their other attributes will be rewarded. So it should come as no surprise that there are major occupational differences related to appearance discrimination. As it had been mentioned above the discrimination towards physical appearance could be fairly large in occupations.
A lot of things are affected regarding physical appearance in the professional world however this kind of discrimination should not exist in order to have a better environment at the workplace. The lack of awareness regarding appearance discrimination in the workplace should be a matter of concern for human resources professionals. Those who are in charge of interviewing job applicants and investigating claims of discrimination should be trained in this important issue to protect companies from possible liability.
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