长得好有高收入?——中国劳动力市场的相貌歧视问题研究

Does Beauty Pay? Appearance-based Discrimination in Chinese Labor Market

劳动力市场上的相貌歧视会损害市场的公平与效率,探究中国劳动力市场相貌歧视的存在性及其作用机制,对于保障劳动者合法权益,促进社会公平和经济稳步发展都有十分重要的意义。本文基于中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)2010年数据,研究了劳动力市场的相貌歧视问题。普通最小二乘(OLS)回归结果表明,相貌高于平均水平不会有统计上显著的工资升水,但相貌低于平均水平使男性劳动者工资率显著降低17.8%,女性劳动者工资率显著降低9.5%。为了更好地避免参数估计的内生性问题,本文使用配偶相貌作为自身相貌的工具变量,进行了工具变量估计,结论与OLS估计基本一致。进一步的分析显示,相貌对工资的影响很大一部分是由雇主歧视造成的,但也有一部分来自相貌带来的生产率差异。

The discrimination based on physical appearance in the labor market damages the fairness and efficiency of the market. Therefore, this paper illustrates the existence of appearance- based discrimination and its mechanism in Chinese labor market, which is important to protect employees＇ rights, maintain balance of society and stabilize the development of economy. Based on the data from China Family Panel Studies （2010）, we analyze the appearance- based discrimination in Chinese labor market. The results of Ordinary Least Squares regression indicates that individuals whose appearance levels are above the average show no statistical significance in wage increase, but individuals with lower than average physical appearance show a significant decline, 17.8% among male group and 9.5% among female group. Besides, we also leverage physical appearance level of sample＇ s spouses as an instrumental variable to solve endogeneity problem, which reaches a similar conclusion as OLS regression method. Further analysis indicates that the effects of physical appearance on wages mostly resulted from employer discrimination, occasionally also from productivity difference which is caused by appearance.