Pretty people have all the luck. Even Airbnb is a beauty contest, a new paper says
PRETTY PEOPLE have all the luck. Studies show that the good-looking are considered more likeable, more intelligent and more employable than the rest of us. They also earn more. A well-knownpublished in 1994 found that attractive men were paid 5% more than average-looking ones; attractive women made 4% more. In peer-to-peer marketplaces such as Airbnb and Uber, where buyers and sellers interact directly with one another, first impressions are particularly important.
The authors found that, after controlling for factors such as location and property size, a one-point increase in a host’s attractiveness rating was associated with a 2.8% increase in rental prices. But this was not a “beauty premium”, whereby hotter hosts command higher-than-average prices. Instead, unattractive hosts suffer an “ugliness penalty”, earning 6.8% less for their listings.
Airbnb bias goes beyond attractiveness, however. The authors also ran the 1,000-odd profile photos through an algorithm that classified hosts by race, age and “smile intensity”. They found that Airbnb renters are willing to pay 3.6% more to stay with a grinning host than a sullen one. Black hosts, meanwhile, earn 10.1% less for their apartments than white ones. Apublished in 2014 found a similar penalty for black hosts in New York, calling it a form of digital discrimination.
Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s boss, has said such prejudice is “the greatest challenge we face as a company”. The firm has set up a special team of engineers and researchers to tackle racial bias, and asked its users to sign an anti-discrimination agreement. If these new findings are anything to go by they have a long way to go.
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