New psychological research released in 2024 has found that attractive students still tend to earn higher grades, but this beauty advantage vanishes for female students when classes are taught remotely. The study, published in Economic Letters, offers an updated look at how appearance impacts student success.
Research continues to show that physical attractiveness plays a role in a person’s achievements. Attractive people tend to earn more money and report greater life satisfaction than those considered less attractive. Yet, scholars still haven’t agreed on the reasons behind this beauty premium.
One explanation is that beauty may lead to discrimination. Employers might naturally favor attractive employees over those who are less physically appealing. Another theory is that attractiveness boosts productivity, with increased self-confidence playing a key role.
“I’m particularly interested in discrimination as a whole,” said Adrian Mehic, a graduate student at Lund University and the study’s author. “In economics research, there’s been a lot of focus on discrimination based on gender and race, but beauty-based discrimination in education hasn’t been explored much. This paper fills that gap.”
“The pandemic made it more difficult to discriminate based on appearance because teachers couldn’t easily see students’ faces. However, gender discrimination can still occur online, as long as teachers have students’ names,” Mehic added.