Pretty Integrated? Perceptions of immigrants’ physical attractiveness and consequences for integration outcomes

• Applicants: Johanna Gereke, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Reinhard Schunck
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 447581390

Increasing migration-related diversity in European societies has spurred interest in understanding the factors that explain immigrant integration outcomes. Existing explanations have largely focused on either macro-level factors such as integration policies and welfare regimes, or on classical individual-level resources such as educational attainment, language proficiency, and social capital. However, scholars have so far overlooked another potentially crucial factor in immigrants’ integration outcomes: immigrants’ physical attractiveness. The project aims to investigate the causes and consequences of perceptions of attractiveness in the context of immigrant integration. Physical attractiveness has been shown to be a key determinant of life chances in various domains as attractive people are generally treated more favourably. However, everyday perceptions of attractiveness may themselves be influenced by ethnic boundaries and cultural distance, thereby shaping how attractive members of different groups perceive one another. Given that physical attractiveness may be both a determinant of integration and itself subject to social construction, this project has two main objectives: (I) to understand the link between physical attractiveness and immigrants’ socioeconomic integration outcomes, especially in the labor market,(II) to understand how perceptions of immigrants’ physical attractiveness are affected by ethnic boundaries. The project proposes to use a wide range of data and quantitative research methods. First, to investigate the consequences of physical attractiveness for immigrant integration, we will combine a) the analysis of survey data, which include interviewer ratings of respondent attractiveness, with b) an original factorial survey experiment and c) a field experiment in the labor market (correspondence study), in which we manipulate signals of ethnicity and attractiveness. Second, to study how perceptions of attractiveness are affected by ethnic boundaries and cultural distance we will combine a) the analysis of survey data with b) an additional original factorial survey, in which we manipulate signals of ethnicity and integration.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants