If you’ve been spending the last several years fighting for equality, taking Women’s Studies courses, and not shaving your funky pits, here’s some bad news for you. We already heard women who change their name can earn $500,000 less; now LearnVest parsed all the demographic statistics it could find to determine out who is the ideal, stereotypically highest-paid woman. And, big surprise, Pretty girls make more money. Specifically pretty, skinny, assertive, non-smoking, blonde, light-drinking Asian women named Deborah with MBAs. So where do you stack up in the rankings?
BODY
Lookers make about 5 percent more than average-looking women and, unfortch, unattractive women make 9 percent less than ordinary-looking women. Women considered “very thin” (25 pounds less than average), make $22,000 more than their co-workers of normal weight. In white women, an extra 65 pounds is linked to a 7 percent reduction in wages.
HABITS
While cutting back on the nicotine increases income, you can still booze it up: Non-smoking women are worth $8,300 more than heavy smokers and $2,000 higher than light smokers. But social drinkers earn 14 percent more than non-drinkers. SCORE!
EDUCATION
The real money is in the MBA. A women with an MBA will earn $4.4 million over a lifetime, compared to the $1.2 million for a woman only with a high school diploma. WHATEV!
You can stop being a Meek Mary because women who are assertive earn 5 percent more than those who try to please. SWEEET!
Good news for all the single ladies though: Single women under 29 without children who live in big cities make 8-20 percent more than their male counterparts. HEYOO!
Certain first names are most popular among CEOs (Deborah, Sally, Debra, Cynthia and Carolyn), but no matter how neat the last name, (Coolsocks, Awesomenuts, Radnads), remember that taking on your husbo’s moniker will make you $500K poorer.
Our advice for your next job interview: Get a cheap highlight job, change your name to Carolyn, and do your best to look Asian.
View Comments (2)
disagree with the blonde comment. i am asian and know asian women who are not blonde and they still make way more money than blondes.
kind of like men's earnings and height...