In a recent book, journalist Malcolm Gladwell reported the results of his survey of about one-half of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. He found that the average CEO is approximately 3 inches taller than the average American man, who stands 5-foot-9. Further, 30 percent of the CEOs are at least 6-foot-2; the corresponding percentage for American adult men overall is only 3.9 percent. To what can these observations be attributed? Do taller people make better CEO candidates? In general, workers expect their employment outcomes, especially wages and promotions, to depend on factors related to productivity, such as education, tenure and experience. However, this type of anecdotal evidence about the heights of CEOs suggests that employment outcomes are influenced by more than just productivity.
In past articles of this publication, various authors have explored the effect of several seemingly innocuous factors (for example, gender and marital status) that might bias wages. In this article, we examine a few aspects of appearance—a characteristic that one might not believe would directly affect wages. We first consider some studies that provide evidence of an appearance-wage bias and then discuss some possible explanations for it.
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