Beauty Pays: Good Looking People Earn More

Attractive people are more likely to earn a higher salary, be happier and enjoy more job perks than their average-looking colleagues, a new study has claimed.

In a new book called Beauty Pays, by University of Texas-Austin Professor Daniel S Hamermesh, the professor's research into the benefits of being good-looking reveals that being pretty pays, literally.

Hamermesh, who has studied ' the economics of beauty' claims that pretty people tend to enjoy perks beyond their pay such as party invites and business trips while less attractive workers are ignored and can often be victims of discrimination.

As a result of receiving such favour, attractive employees are more productive and have more drive to succeed, which can lead to higher sales and potentially more money in their pay packets.

Despite accepting that work ethic, experience and education were significant factors in determining people's earnings, the processor insists that a person's looks are impossible to ignore and says that he is merely unearthing what advertisers have known for decades- that beauty sells.

Even though, the book also argues that what constitutes attractiveness is a more complicated matter as beauty is often in the eye of the beholder, Professor Hamermesh offers a few known subconscious factors that people use to determine if they find you attractive, such as the symmetry of the face, facial expression or whether you resemble somebody famous .

Beautiful people will be happy to hear that they could potentially make an average of about £145,000 more in a lifetime than the plain Janes that they work with, according to the professor's estimates.

He says that a beautiful woman for example would earn four per cent more, and handsome men three per cent more, than their below-average looking counterparts.

Do you argree that pretty people get all the perks? Let us know what you think...