Gender and beauty in the financial analyst profession: Evidence from the United States and China

• Main Authors: LI, Congcong, LIN, An-ping, LU, Hai, VEENSTRA, Kevin
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2020
• Subjects: Analysts; Gender; Beauty; Labor market; Accounting; Asian Studies; Finance and Financial Management; Gender and Sexuality
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soa_research/1876; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soa_research/article/2903/viewcontent/Gender_Beauty_av.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

We examine how gender and beauty affect the likelihood of being voted as an All-Star in the financial analyst profession in both the United States and China. We find that female analysts are more likely to be voted as All-Star analysts in the United States, but good-looking female U.S. analysts are less likely to be voted as All-Stars. The conclusion is the opposite for Chinese analysts. We find that female analysts in China are less likely to be voted as All-Stars, but the likelihood increases with their facial attractiveness. These findings implicate a beauty penalty for female analysts in the United States and gender discrimination against female analysts in China. This career path evidence from a competitive financial industry suggests that gender and beauty biases may be rooted deeply in culture and the legal environment and should not be treated homogenously.