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.