Beauty Capital: Is Beauty Nature or Rational Investment?

This paper scrutinizes the determinant mechanism of beauty by proposing a concept of "beauty capital" as one form of human capital. The literature has revealed diverse social consequences of physical attractiveness. Still, it has been left unsolved whether beauty is naturally determined or intentionally attained. Data were collected in 2018 Opinion Survey on Local Governance in Indonesia. A representative sample in Java was chosen and analyzed with 3,212 respondents. Interviewers evaluated respondents' beauty and skin brightness on five-point scales. Key findings include, first, that education and income increased skin brightness. Second, while skin brightness did boost beauty levels, education and income also raised it. This implies that different socio-economic status groups use different strategies of investment in beauty capital, which is changeable and controllable. Therefore, beauty depends, at least partly, on individual attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]