Professor Daniel Hamermesh has analysed data from a famous study and found where the most and least attractive live in Britain. He said attractiveness can even affect people’s pay cheques
A scientist believes he has pinpointed where the most ugliest people live in Britain and shared where prettier people can be found.
Professor Daniel Hamermesh shared his findings and claimed that the least attractive people reside in Wales. The professor, who specialises in the economics of beauty (pulchronomics ), also revealed where the prettiest people tend to live. He said that while the least attractive usually “migrate to places like Wales”, areas such as the Southeast “repels the bad looking.” The scientist, who is based at the University of Texas, US, said unattractive people also live in Scotland.
Hamermesh conducted his research by examining data from the 1958 National Child Development study which recorded the lives of 17,415 people born in England, Scotland and Wales in one week of 1958. Teachers of the pupils, at age seven and 11, who were born between March 3 and 9, 1958, were asked to rate how attractive the students were. They were able to complete the ranking by using a sliding scale and gave them the options of attractive, unattractive, normal or abnormal feature”.
The researchers wrote in the National Bureau of Economic Research at the time: “The Southeast attracted good-looking people, while less good-looking people moved elsewhere in the UK.” The study, which followed its participants as the years went on, asked them questions about their overall happiness at the ages of 33, 41, 46, and 51. Hamermesh highlighted how those who were classed as attractive were more satisfied with their lives.
Professor Hamermesh also stressed that attractive people earned on average around £145,000 more in a lifetime compared to people with below-average looks. He told The Times: “During a life we suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The outrageous fortune in this case is that some people are born and grow up to be pretty bad-looking.” He further explained that many areas in our life link back to looks such as friendships, marriage and self-esteem. “If you’re not attractive, it’s a disadvantage in almost every activity you undertake,” he said.
The professor says he understands why people might view his research in a bad light and added: “People find it offensive. They say you shouldn’t be working on it. It’s like talking about income or your sex life. We don’t want to talk about it too much.” However, he backed up his reasoning and said that sex and money is something “we’re thinking about it all the time”.
