What does job applicants’ body art signal to employers?

Stijn Baert, Jolien Herregods and Philippe Sterkens

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2024, vol. 217, issue C, 742-755

Abstract: In this study, we present a state-of-the-art scenario experiment which, for the first time in the literature, directly measures the stigmas surrounding job candidates with tattoos and piercings using real recruiters. We find that job candidates with body art are perceived as less pleasant to work with, less honest, less emotionally stable, less agreeable, less conscientious and less manageable. This goes hand in hand with lower hireability for men with body art but not for women. Compared to candidates who reveal obesity, a characteristic we also randomise, those with body art score better overall in terms of hireability and rated personality, similar in terms of rated taste for collaboration but worse in terms of rated direct productivity drivers.

Keywords: Body art; Obesity; Stigmas; Personality; Hiring; Taste discrimination; Statistical discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 J24 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268123004456
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: What Does Job Applicants' Body Art Signal to Employers? (2023)
Working Paper: What does job applicants' body art signal to employers? (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:217:y:2024:i:c:p:742-755

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.12.008

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().