It may never have occurred to you that, for the average person, the eventual economic conditions, including salary potential, are predetermined well before birth. There are several factors that influence our ability to compete in society and our capacity to win the rat race, or at least be somewhere at the forefront. Some of these factors are under our control, including our determination to work hard, compete, influence significant others, and so on, or are they?
Many other factors are obviously beyond our control. Take, for instance, the issue of gender. Being born a woman automatically reduces your life chances and salary expectations. Women have to compete with men on very unequal terms.
Even if we ignore (at our own risk) the impact that pregnancy has on the career of the average woman, there is overwhelming evidence that women’s salaries trail behind those of men by 10 to 20 per cent. So if you want a fatter salary package, you have to make sure that you are born a man.
Related to this is the fact that the proportion of women among the biggest earners, CEOs, ministers, and so forth, is low. Undesirable as this is, it seems to be a fact of life.
A second biological characteristic that influences your salary is height. A recent article in Scientific American confirms that, in the US, an extra inch (2.54 cm) of height (in both men and women) raises your annual salary by about $6,000 (€4,436).
Maybe those of us born of short parents should do something about this. Many formulas exist that predict your children’s height. Adding together the height of the parents and dividing by half gives a quick predictor of children’s height (adding five centimetres for boys and subtracting that amount for girls). Another quick and ready way is to double the height of your child at two years of age: this will give you an indication of eventual adult height. Should all these shorter children receive growth hormone supplementation?
Of course, the perception of average height is a relative concept. The person who feels about average in Malta may feel rather puny in Sweden or Sudan. It is also biology that determines that some achieve great heights whereas others are concentrated in smaller containers.
More insidious, but equally telling, is the fact that for the average worker, man or woman, your job depends on your looks. This has been dubbed ‘lookism’, and is linked with other ‘isms’ like racism and sexism as a determinant of success.
Are we victims of our biology?
A study in Australia has found that good-looking men can earn on average $81,000 (€59,875) compared with the paltry $50,000 (€36,962) earned by those endowed with less pleasing features. Biology here is responsible for a difference of 60 per cent in earning capacity.
These considerations are pretty obvious, even before we consider issues relating to one’s constitution. Take, for instance, the enormous variability of our immune response, which is so crucial in preventing disease.
If you take any group of people, you will find that some take a couple of days of sick leave a month, while others sail through the whole year without any – the average in Western Europe is seven days per year, with wide variations. One’s immune response is heavily dependent on genetic make-up, and the enormous variability in immune responses has a very significant effect on salary.
Myriad other conditions depend on our genes and determine our capacity to enjoy a full and productive life. Genetic constitution is almost invariably linked with a plethora of chronic disorders, including the ubiquitous diabetes, heart disease, cancer and even life expectancy.
Health is inextricably linked with an individual’s economic conditions. So are we victims of our biology? It is common dogma that holds we are the result of nature and nurture.
Whether it is our physical characteristics, our mental make-up, including nuanced psycho-social traits, which are so crucial in determining our success in life, these are all factors that determine what we are and have a profound influence on what we can make of ourselves in any given environment.