The impact of lookism on employment decisions: evidence from China

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a facial photo of female job applicants on employment decisions. Design/methodology/approach A laboratory or “controlled” experiment was conducted to examine the impacts of job applicants’ facial photos, job applicants' professional qualifications (education level and years of work experience), raters’ gender and college student raters’ academic year on employment-related decisions in a hypothetical situation in the Chinese context. A descriptive analysis and mixed-design factorial ANOVA were conducted. Findings Significant main effects were found for the applicant’s photo and professional qualifications in the analysis of employment decisions. Significant interaction effects were also found in the analysis. Originality/value Discrimination against applicants who attached unattractive photos was more pronounced for the interview decision when the applicants had low qualifications than when they had high qualifications. Although both male and female raters’ ratings of the interview, hiring and salary decisions decreased as attractiveness decreased, it was more pronounced for male raters than female raters.