Do job applicants and employees with tattoos suffer a penalty in the labor market because of their body art? Previous research has found that tattooed people are widely perceived by hiring managers to be less employable than people without tattoos. This is especially the case for those who have visible tattoos (particularly offensive ones) that are difficult to conceal. Given this backdrop, our research surprisingly found no empirical evidence of employment, wage or earnings discrimination against people with various types of tattoos. In our sample, and considering a variety of alternative estimation techniques, not only are the wages and annual earnings of tattooed employees in the United States statistically indistinguishable from the wages and annual earnings of employees without tattoos, but tattooed individuals are also just as likely, and in some instances even more likely, to gain employment. These results suggest that, contrary to popular opinion as well as research findings with hiring managers and customers, having a tattoo does not appear to be associated with disadvantage or discrimination in the labor market.
AakerJL (1997) Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Management34(3): 347–356.
2.
AckerJ (2006) Inequality regimes: Gender, class, and race in organizations. Gender & Society20(4): 441–464.
3.
ArmstrongCFloodPCGuthrieJPet al. (2010) The impact of diversity and equality management on firm performance: Beyond high performance work systems. Human Resource Management49(6): 977–998.
4.
ArndtADGlassmanM (2012) What tattoos tell customers about salespeople: The role of gender norms. Marketing Management Journal22(1): 50–65.
5.
ArndtADKarandeKGlassmanM (2016) How context interferes with similarity-attraction between customers and service providers. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services31(July): 294–303.
6.
ArulampalamWBoothALBryanML (2007) Is there a glass ceiling over Europe? Exploring the gender pay gap across the wage distribution. Industrial and Labor Relations Review60(2): 163–186.
7.
BargerPBehrendTSSharekDJSinarEF (2011) I-O and the crowd: Frequently asked questions about using Mechanical Turk for research. The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist49(2): 11–17.
8.
BeckerGS (1971) The Economics of Discrimination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
9.
BekhorPSBekhorLGandraburM (1995) Employer attitudes toward persons with visible tattoos. Australasian Journal of Dermatology36(2): 75–77.
10.
BellMPÖzbilginMFBeauregardTASurgevilO (2011) Voice, silence and diversity in 21st century organizations: Strategies for inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees. Human Resource Management50(1): 131–146.
11.
BlauFDKahnLM (2006) The U.S. gender pay gap in the 1990s: Slowing convergence. Industrial and Labor Relations Review60(1): 45–66.
12.
BorooahVK (2002) Logit and Probit: Ordered and Multinomial Models (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences). London: SAGE.
13.
BrallierSAMaguireKASmithDAPalmLJ (2011) Visible tattoos and employment in the restaurant service industry. International Journal of Business and Social Science2(6): 72–76.
14.
BurgessMClarkL (2010) Do the “savage origins” of tattoos cast a prejudicial shadow on contemporary tattooed individuals?Journal of Applied Social Psychology40(3): 746–764.
15.
BuhrmesterMKwangTGoslingSD (2011) Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high quality, data?Perspectives on Psychological Science6(1): 3–5.
16.
CaslerKBickelLHackettE (2013) Separate but equal? A comparison of participants and data gathered via Amazon’s MTurk, social media, and face-to-face behavioral testing. Computers in Human Behavior29(6): 2156–2160.
17.
DarityWAMasonPL (1998) Evidence on discrimination in employment: Codes of color, codes of gender. Journal of Economic Perspectives12(2): 63–90.
18.
DeanDH (2010) Consumer perceptions of visible tattoos on service personnel. Managing Service Quality: An International Journal20(3): 294–308.
19.
DegelmanDPriceND (2002) Tattoos and ratings of personal characteristics. Psychological Reports90(2): 507–514.
20.
DeitchEABarskyAButzRMet al. (2003) Subtle yet significant: The existence and impact of everyday racial discrimination in the workplace. Human Relations56(11): 1299–1324.
21.
DeMelloM (1995) ‘Not just for bikers anymore’: Popular representations of American tattooing. Journal of Popular Culture29(3): 37–52.
22.
DeschesnesMFinèsPDemersS (2006) Are tattooing and body piercing indicators of risk-taking behaviours among high school students?Journal of Adolescence29(3): 379–393.
23.
DillinghRKooremanPPottersJ (2016) Tattoos, life style and the labor market. IZA Discussion Papers 9675, Institute for the Study of Labor. Available at: http://ftp.iza.org/dp9675.pdf.
24.
DipboyeRL (2005) Looking the part: Bias against the physically unattractive as a discrimination issue. In: DipboyeRLColellaA (eds) Discrimination at Work: The Psychological and Organizational Bases. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 281–301.
25.
DoleacJLSteinLCD (2013) The visible hand: Race and online market outcomes. The Economic Journal123(572): F469–F492.
26.
DurkinKHoughtonS (2000) Children’s and adolescents’ stereotypes of tattooed people as delinquent. Legal and Criminological Psychology5(2): 153–164.
27.
FevreRRobinsonALewisDJonesT (2013) The ill-treatment of employees with disabilities in British workplaces. Work, Employment & Society27(2): 288–307.
28.
FinkelsteinLMBurkeMJRajuMS (1995) Age discrimination in simulated employment contexts: An integrative analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology80(6): 652–663.
29.
FrenchMTPopoviciI (2011) That instrument is lousy! In search of agreement when using instrumental variables estimation in substance use research. Health Economics20(2): 127–146.
30.
FrenchMTRobinsPKHomerJFTapsellLM (2009) Effects of physical attractiveness, personality, and grooming on academic performance in high school. Labour Economics16(4): 373–382.
31.
FrenchMTMacleanJCRobinsPKet al. (2016) Tattoos, employment, and labor market earnings: Is there a link in the ink?Southern Economic Journal82(4): 1212–1246.
32.
FriezeIHOlsonJEGoodDC (1990) Perceived and actual discrimination in the salaries of male and female managers. Journal of Applied Social Psychology20(1): 46–67.
33.
GhummanSRyanAM (2013) Not welcome here: Discrimination towards women who wear the Muslim headscarf. Human Relations66(5): 671–698.
34.
GoffmanE (1963) Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. New York: Touchstone.
35.
GoodmanJKCryderCECheemaA (2013) Data collection in a flat world: The strengths and weaknesses of Mechanical Turk studies. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making26(3): 213–224.
36.
GoslingSDVazireSSrivastavaSJohnOP (2004) Should we trust web-based studies? A comparative analysis of six preconceptions about internet questionnaires. American Psychologist59(2): 93–104.
37.
GreeneAM (2015) Voice and workforce diversity. In: JohnstoneSAckersP (eds) Finding a Voice at Work? New Perspectives on Employment Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 67–94.
38.
GuryanJCharlesKK (2013) Taste-based or statistical discrimination: The economics of discrimination returns to its roots. The Economic Journal123(572): F417–F432.
39.
HamermeshDSBiddleJE (1994) Beauty and the labor market. The American Economic Review84(5): 1174–1194.
40.
HargittaiEShaferS (2006) Differences in actual and perceived online skills: The role of gender. Social Science Quarterly87(2): 432–448.
41.
HerringC (2009) Does diversity pay? Race, gender, and the business case for diversity. American Sociological Review74(2): 208–224.
42.
HeywoodWPatrickKSmithAMAet al. (2012) Who gets tattoos? Demographic and behavioral correlates of ever being tattooed in a representative sample of men and women. Annals of Epidemiology22(1): 51–56.
43.
HoqueKWassVBaconNJonesM (2018) Are high-performance work practices (HPWPs) enabling or disabling? Exploring the relationship between selected HPWPs and work-related disability disadvantage. Human Resource Management57(2): 499–513.
44.
KalerJ (2001) Diversity, equality, morality. In: NoonMOgbonnaE (eds) Equality, Diversity and Disadvantage in Employment. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
45.
KarlKPeluchetteJVEHallLM (2016) Employee beliefs regarding the impact of unconventional appearance on customers in Mexico and Turkey. Employee Relations38(2): 163–181.
46.
KingEDAhmadAS (2010) An experimental field study of interpersonal discrimination toward Muslim job applicants. Personnel Psychology63(4): 881–906.
47.
KunzeFBoehmSABruchH (2011) Age diversity, age discrimination climate and performance consequences—a cross organizational study. Journal of Organizational Behavior32(2): 264–290.
48.
LaerKVJanssensM (2011) Ethnic minority professionals’ experiences with subtle discrimination in the workplace. Human Relations64(9): 1203–1227.
49.
LarsenGPattersonMMarkhamL (2014) A deviant art: Tattoo-related stigma in an era of commodification. Psychology and Marketing31(8): 670–681.
50.
LevayC (2014) Obesity in organizational context. Human Relations67(5): 565–585.
51.
McBrideAHebsonGHolgateJ (2015) Intersectionality: Are we taking enough notice in the field of work and employment relations?Work, Employment & Society29(2): 331–341.
52.
ManuelLRetzlaffPD (2002) Psychopathology and tattooing among prisoners. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology46(5): 522–531.
53.
MartensMPPageJCMowryESet al. (2006) Differences between actual and perceived student norms: An examination of alcohol use, drug use, and sexual behavior. Journal of American College Health54(5): 295–300.
54.
MillerBKMcGlashan NicolsKEureJ (2009) Body art in the workplace: Piercing the prejudice?Personnel Review38(6): 621–640.
55.
MortensenKHughesTL (2018) Comparing Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform to conventional data collection methods in the health and medical research literature. Journal of General Internal Medicine33(4): 533–538.
56.
MortensenKAlcalaMGFrenchMTHuT (2018) Self-reported health status differs for Amazon’s Mechanical Turk respondents compared with nationally representative surveys. Medical Care56(3): 211–215.
57.
MullerCWinshipCMorganSL (2014) Instrumental variables regression. In: BeestHWolfC (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Regression Analysis and Causal Inference. London: SAGE, 277–300.
58.
NicksonDTimmingARReDPerrettDI (2016) Subtle increases in BMI within a healthy weight range still reduce women’s employment chances in the service sector. PLoS ONE11(9): e0159659.
59.
NoonM (2007) The fatal flaws of diversity and the business case for ethnic minorities. Work, Employment and Society21(4): 773–784.
60.
OppenheimerDMMeyvisTDavidenkoN (2009) Instructional manipulation checks: Detecting satisficing to increase statistical power. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology45(4): 867–872.
61.
ÖzbilginMF (2009) Equality, diversity and inclusion at work: Yesterday, today and tomorrow. In: ÖzbilginMF (ed.) Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Work: A Research Companion. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1–16.
62.
PaolacciGChandlerJ (2014) Inside the Turk: Understanding Mechanical Turk as a participant pool. Current Directions in Psychological Science23(3): 184–188.
63.
PeffleyMHurwitzJSnidermanPM (1997) Racial stereotypes and Whites’ political views of blacks in the context of welfare and crime. American Journal of Political Science41(1): 30–60.
64.
PendryLFDriscollDMFieldSCT (2007) Diversity training: Putting theory into practice. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology80(1): 27–50.
QuillianLPagerD (2010) Estimating risk: Stereotype amplification and the perceived risk of criminal victimization. Social Psychology Quarterly73(1): 79–104.
67.
RaginsBRCornwellJM (2001) Pink triangles: Antecedents and consequences of perceived workplace discrimination against gay and lesbian employees. Journal of Applied Psychology86(6): 1244–1261.
68.
RobertsTARyanSA (2002) Tattooing and high-risk behavior in adolescents. Pediatrics110(6): 1058–1063.
69.
RobinsPKHomerJFFrenchMT (2011) Beauty and the labor market: Accounting for the additional effects of personality and grooming. Labour25(2): 228–251.
70.
SchildkroutE (2004) Inscribing the body. Annual Review of Anthropology33: 319–344.
71.
SheehanKBPittmanM (2016) Amazon’s Mechanical Turk for Academics: The HIT Handbook for Social Science Research. Irvine: Melvin and Leigh.
72.
SwangerN (2006) Visible body modification (VBM): Evidence from human resource managers and recruiters and the effects on employment. International Journal of Hospitality Management25(1): 154–158.
73.
TimmingAR (2015) Visible tattoos in the service sector: A new challenge to recruitment and selection. Work, Employment & Society29(1): 60–78.
74.
TimmingAR (2017) Body art as branded labour: At the intersection of employee selection and relationship marketing. Human Relations70(9): 1041–1063.
75.
TimmingARNicksonDReDPerrettD (2017) What do you think of my ink? Assessing the effects of body art on employment chances. Human Resource Management56(1): 133–149.
WarhurstCvan den BroekDHallRNicksonD (2009) Lookism: The new frontier of employment discrimination?Industrial Relations Journal51(1): 131–136.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
