Perceived Attractiveness and the Link between Parent Socioeconomic Resources and Educational Attainment

• In Event: 212 - Section on Inequality, Poverty and Mobility Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. Life Course and Intergenerational Perspectives on Inequality

Abstract

People who are perceived as good looking or as having a pleasant personality enjoy a host of social advantages. Physical attractiveness has a well-established link with a number of labor market outcomes and educational attainment. Different dimensions of personality, such as agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extraversion, are also known to be associated with education and labor market outcomes. Past studies have primarily focused on only one dimension of perceived attractiveness at a time and have not explored perceived attractiveness as a potential mediator of the association between parent socioeconomic resources and educational attainment. Furthermore, past research has not considered the possibility that perceived attractiveness may have a stronger association with educational attainment for people with limited parent socioeconomic resources. This study draws on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health and structural equation models to analyze the potential mediating and moderating role of perceived attractiveness in the link between parent socioeconomic resources and educational attainment. Results indicate that perceived personality attractiveness has a stronger association with educational attainment than perceived physical attractiveness, that both dimensions of perceived attractiveness are associated with parent socioeconomic resources, and that both dimensions of perceived attractiveness have a stronger association with educational attainment for people from families with lower levels of parent education.

Authors

• Shawn Bauldry, University of Alabama-Birmingham

• Michael J. Shanahan, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

• Rosemary A. Russo, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill