Percy on the Importance of Grooming
Economists at Elon University — just a few miles down the road from Greensboro — have confirmed what I have long known: returns on one's investment in grooming are quite substantial, particularly if you're a man. From Bloomberg:
"Extra time spent grooming has a positive and significant effect on both men's and women's earnings, but the effect is considerably larger for men," [Elon economists Jayoti Das and Stephen DeLoach] said in a paper called "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: The Effect of Time Spent Grooming on Wages." "For men, every extra 10 minutes daily grooming increases their weekly wages by 6 percent. However, women would have to nearly quadruple their daily grooming time to receive that much in additional wages."This is welcome news for all of us: people who aren't naturally attractive are incentivized to improve upon their appearance — whether it be via enhanced personal hygiene, exercise or surgical procedure — and the rest of us will enjoy having better people to look at.
Economists Das (left) and DeLoach look good enough to be making a decent wage.
One mistake I found in the paper: "Perhaps the recent 'metrosexual' phenomenon is a rational response to market forces."
I haven't read the paper yet, so I'm wondering whether the authors consider the alternative explanation: that people become more vain as their incomes rise, and they have more money to spend on grooming products, causing them to spend more time primping themselves. Really someone ought to do an experiment, take two groups of otherwise similar low-wage workers, have one group start to spend extra time grooming, and then see if their incomes increase more than the control group. I bet I can get a National Science Foundation grant for this. Elon could become renowned as a center for grooming research.
There is much to be said about grooming and earnings. I try to be meticulous when it matters. I tend to come off like a red-headed stepchild, but am somewhere in between. My hair is naturally curly-frizzy, colored like a dirty penny that has been skid across the pavement. That is a lot to contend with when trying to increase a paycheck. Studies have also shown that straight hair earns more money than curly hair with women, and they are taken more seriously. Not sure what I think about that. And, intelligence in women is attributed negatively with a larger breast size. How do they do this for men, I wonder?
Well and here we thought Percy was earning so much due to his financial prowess. I think we've got the REAL reason he's decabillionaire.
I am disheartened to learn that as a government employee I will thus be limited to immediately leaving for work when I wake up---or face the consequences of losing my job.
Thanks for the great comments, eric, Natalie and Jim.
I'd say that about 16% of my net worth is attributable to superior grooming habits. The balance is due to superior intelligence.