Kids with acne may do better in careers: study

Higher earnings could be linked to time studying

EDMONTON • Cheer up, kid. It turns out that having acne might just be good for your career in the long term, even if it’s not all that great for your social life.

In a study published in the Journal of Human Capital, two researchers from the United States found that having acne as an adolescent was correlated with higher grade point averages, a greater likelihood of graduating college and, for women, some evidence that having acne is associated with higher earnings.

The reason: Those with acne were less likely to be out socializing and more likely to spend their time studying, explained Erik Nesson, an economics professor at Ball State University in Indiana.

“We got the idea that a really useful way to look at people’s appearance might be to look at something like acne, because, turns out that acne affects people pretty randomly,” Nesson said.

The study explains that, basically, acne “is associated with reduced participation in sports clubs and increased participation in non-sports clubs, suggesting a possible shift from physical to intellectual pursuits.”

So, skin problems lead to a more intellectual life, which, in turn, means better grades, more education and higher incomes.

Not that that’s necessarily much consolation.

The paper notes that acne is strongly correlated with suicide among adolescents, but suggests “knowledge of long-term benefits associated with having had acne has the potential to reduce teen suicides.”

However, while the study suggests that occasional acne correlates positively to labour market success, severe acne has a detrimental effect.

“Our findings are consistent with a mechanism where severe acne limits socialization so much as to affect long-term outcomes that may depend both on studying and on sociability,” the paper says.

The paper, explained Nesson, is part of a larger body of work exploring how attractiveness correlates with success in life.

There is a well-studied phenomenon whereby beautiful people tend to be more successful.

Vera Brencic, an economics professor at the University of Alberta, said in an email that more research needs to be done to account for any link between acne and success; the results, she said, could be influenced by other unobserved factors — say, acne prevalence within a single classroom — rather than acne more broadly.

“Overall, this is an interesting study in that it suggests that what might be considered as a disadvantage when growing up ends up translating into positive outcomes later on in life,” Brencic explained.

“In this regard, the finding contrasts with similar studies who show that other kinds of disadvantages (being short or not beautiful) are typically linked to labour market penalties.”

Nesson, along with Hugo Mialon, an economist at Emory College in Georgia, analyzed data collected by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which ran studies of adolescent development in waves beginning in 1994-95. That research contains information about academic performance, perception of physical attractiveness, acne, and, in followup research over the years, educational attainment and income, Nesson and Mialon’s study notes.

“Skin problems are also associated with increases in cumulative overall highschool GPA and cumulative science high-school GPA, and we find some evidence that skin problems are related to cumulative mathematics and science high-school GPAs,” the study says.

When it comes to income, acne is correlated to a 3.8 per cent increase in chances of getting a bachelor’s degree.

“Skin problems are not consistently related to earnings among the entire sample, but skin problems are positively related to personal earnings for women and white women,” the study says.

SEVERE ACNE, HOWEVER HAS A DETRIMENTAL EFFECT.