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Michael T. French of the University of Miami and colleagues surveyed more than 2,000 people in the United States and found that those with tattoos were no less likely to be employed than their uninked counterparts, and that average earnings were the same for both groups. In fact, tattooed men were slightly more likely to have jobs than other men. The conclusion: A tattoo won’t hurt your job prospects.
迈阿密大学的迈克尔·弗兰奇（Michael T.French）带领的研究团队调查了超过2000名美国人，发现有文身的人找到工作的机会并不比其他人小，而且平均收入也持平。有文身的男性找到工作的概率甚至稍高于没有文身的男性。研究者由此得出结论：文身并不妨碍找工作。
French: We went in expecting to find a negative relationship between tattoos and success in the labor market. My coauthors—Karoline Mortensen, who is also at Miami, and Andrew Timming of the University of Western Australia—and I thought we might see a wage penalty or employment difficulties, because hiring managers have said in previous studies that they’d discriminate against tattooed candidates. But in this analysis, after we controlled for factors that could affect job prospects—such as alcohol use and whether people had been in jail—we found no significant correlation between body art and employment or earnings. Regardless of size, number, visibility, or offensiveness, tattoos don’t seem to stop people from finding jobs or bringing in as much pay as everyone else. We even saw two small positive correlations: Men who had tattoos were 7% more likely to be employed than men who didn’t have them, and both men and women with tattoos worked more hours per week.
弗兰奇：我们的预期本来是，文身和劳动力市场上的成功呈负相关。此前的研究显示，企业招聘负责人会排斥有文身的应聘者，因此我和我的合作者，迈阿密大学的卡洛琳·莫滕森、西澳大学的安德鲁·蒂明以为，有文身的人在工作机会和工资方面会受到负面影响。但在本项研究中，我们排除酗酒、服刑经历等影响职业前景的因素后，发现文身和工作机会或工资没有明显的相关性。无论大小、数量、明显程度、冒犯性如何，文身似乎都不会妨碍人们找到工作或得到平均水平的报酬。我们甚至看到两处微小的正相关：有文身的男性找到工作的概率比没有文身的男性高7%；有文身的男性和女性每周工作的时间都更长。
HBR: So, if I’m a guy struggling to find a job, some ink might help?
Well, I’d urge caution about that. We uncovered a correlation but not causation. The message of this research isn’t that you can boost your job prospects by getting a tattoo. It’s that there’s no labor market penalty for having one.
HBR：所以，如果我是个找不到工作的人，弄个文身可能管用？
呃，我觉得慎重为好。我们发现的是相关性而非因果性。这项研究要说的并不是文身可以让你的职业前景更好，而是劳动力市场对文身没有歧视。
Why were you interested in the effect of tattoos?
There’s been a lot of research on the career effects of other personal characteristics—race, age, beauty, health, height, weight, and disabilities—and of behaviors such as drinking, smoking, and drug use. But nothing much had been done on tattoos. Initially, we could find only two existing data sets in which people had been asked, “Do you have a tattoo?” When we compared their responses with their employment status, we also found no significant correlation. But that single question didn’t take tattoo size or location into account. We thought we might get different results by asking about tattoos you could see or that were especially large or considered offensive.
你为什么会对文身感兴趣？
已经有很多研究考察了其他个人特征对职业的影响，包括种族、年龄、相貌、健康、身高、体重、残疾等，还有喝酒、吸烟、使用毒品等行为，但关于文身的研究还不多。我们最开始只找到两组关于受访者是否有文身的数据，并对比了受访者的回答和他们的雇佣状态，发现两者没有明显相关性。但这些数据并未包括文身大小或位置等信息。我们设想，如果考察显眼、特别大或被认为是冒犯性的文身，可能会得到不同结果。
Our initial hypothesis was also informed by studies suggesting that tattoos are taboo in the workplace. One showed that tattooed people were perceived to be less honest, motivated, and intelligent; in another, 80% of HR managers and recruiters expressed negative feelings about visible ink on prospective employees. And in a 2016 study, Andrew found that tattooed applicants were rated significantly less “hirable” for customer-facing jobs. Until recently, tattoos may have been associated with rebellion, criminal activity, or gang membership—nothing you’re looking for in an employee.
有研究显示，文身是职场中的禁忌，这也影响了我们的初始预设。其中一项研究发现，有文身的人被认为不够诚实、不够努力、不够聪明；另一项研究显示，80%的人力资源管理者和招聘者对求职者的可见文身有负面感受。在2016年的一项研究中，蒂明发现，对于直接面对顾客的工作，有文身的求职者“可雇用”评分明显较低。直到最近，文身都被和反叛、犯罪活动或帮派联系起来，这可不是雇员应该具备的特征。
But times have changed?
Yes, some of those studies are more than a decade old. Since then, body art has gained much more acceptance as a form of personal expression, just like your clothing, jewelry, or hairstyle. Among our survey respondents, 23% of men and 37% of women had tattoos. Some estimates suggest that there is a tattooed person in 40% of U.S. households, up from 21% in 1999.
但时代变了？
没错，刚才提到的这些研究中，有些已经是十多年前的了。近来，文身被认为是和衣着、首饰和发型一样的自我表达方式，被接受程度大大提高。在我们的受访者中，23%的男性和37%的女性有文身。据估计，美国40%的家庭中有人有文身，这一比例在1999年仅为21%。
I’d also note that, as economists have shown in other contexts, stated preferences don’t always match revealed preferences. You might say you’d hire someone without tattoos over someone with them for a particular job. But when it comes right down to it, you’ll choose the most qualified person, body art or not. Even the U.S. Marines now allow recruits to have visible tattoos anywhere but the face, because when tattoos were banned, the organization found it was losing out on good candidates.
我还想指出，像经济学家在其他情境下证明的一样，人们表达出的偏好不一定是真实的偏好。你可能会说，对于某个特定岗位，你倾向于聘用没有文身的人。但在现实中，你其实会选择能力最符合要求的人，无论他有没有文身。甚至美国海军陆战队现在都允许新兵有可见文身，只要不在脸上就可以。军队担心，如果对文身设限，将会错过优秀应征者。
I wonder, though: Is there a blue-collar/white-collar divide? Are tattoos OK for tradespeople but not professionals?
That’s something I wish we’d asked about. A 2010 study did show that consumers perceived visible tattoos to be inappropriate in white-collar professions but not in blue-collar ones. And it’s possible that the people we surveyed were mostly in lower-paying jobs, since they’d volunteered to answer our questions for a small fee on Mechanical Turk. Their average annual salary was $36,485 for men and $25,930 for women. In some types of jobs body art might be seen as less of a negative or even a positive. But I suspect that nowadays most people think it’s OK for even doctors, lawyers, and accountants to have tattoos.
不过我在想，这个发现同样适用于蓝领和白领工作吗？也许干体力活的人可以有文身，而坐办公室的人不行？
可惜我们没有问这方面的问题。2010年的一项研究确实显示，消费者认为白领不应有可见文身，而蓝领则可以。而且有可能我们的大部分受访者都从事低收入工作——他们主动在Mechanical Turk上回答我们的问题，以此获得一点报酬。男性和女性受访者的年平均工资分别为36485美元和25930美元。对于某些类型的工作，文身被视为不那么负面甚至是正面的特征。但我怀疑，大部分人现在会觉得医生、律师和会计师有文身也可以。
Women, too?
Yep. Women accounted for two-thirds of our sample, but we found no employment or wage penalty for those with body art.
女性也一样？
对啊。女性占我们受访者的2/3，但我们没有发现文身影响工作机会或工资的情况。
And even offensiveness isn’t a deal breaker?
Not according to our data. The respondents who told us they had offensive tattoos were just as likely to be employed as those without any tattoos. But we were relying on self-reporting, so our sample size on that measure was small. And offensiveness is subjective. Is a Confederate flag a symbol of Southern heritage or racial oppression? It’s also possible the offensive tattoos were in places people could cover up.
冒犯性的文身也没问题吗？
我们的数据显示没有影响。有这类文身的受访者找到工作的概率，和没有文身的人是一样的。不过这些信息都来自受访者，所以样本数量比较小。而且是否有冒犯性，也和主观判断有关：邦联旗是美国南方的文化标志，还是种族压迫的象征？再者，冒犯性的文身也有可能是在可以遮盖起来的部位。
Is cultural context important? Would you get different results in other countries?
My gut instinct is that we’d see the same findings in Western Europe. In places like Eastern Europe and South America, we might even see that tattoos are more valued. I’m not sure about Asia. This would be a way to extend our research.
文化语境是不是比较重要？放在其他国家也许会有不同结果？
我的直觉是，西欧会是同样的情况。如果是东欧和南美，文身的地位也许还会更高。我对亚洲不太确定，这也许是这项研究的延伸方向。
I have to ask: Do you have a tattoo?
I have a few. On one calf I have a campfire and on the other my favorite motorcycling road. On my bicep I have a waterfall scene, and on the inside of my left forearm, I have a colorful arrow, which I get lots of compliments on. I got my first one 10 years ago.
我必须要问了，你有文身吗？
有几个。一边小腿上文的是篝火图案，另一边是我最喜欢的摩托车骑行路线。大臂外侧上是一个瀑布，左小臂内侧是一支彩色的箭，很多人都夸过这个。我第一次文身是在10年前。
Hmm. What if all the employed people with tattoos only got them once they were established in their careers—as you did? And that’s why they suffer no penalty?
We note in the study that we have no information on the timing of tattoos. It’s possible that when you reach a certain earnings threshold, you say, “OK, I’ll get a tattoo now.” But the Pew Research Center has reported that 38% of Millennials have tattoos. So we’re definitely talking about people early in their careers, too.
有没有可能那些有文身的员工都像你一样，在职业比较稳定之后才去文身？这就是他们没遭到歧视的原因？
我们已经指出，我们不掌握有关文身时间的信息。也有可能你是在挣到一定收入之后才想，“去搞个文身吧”。但皮尤研究中心的报告显示，38%的千禧一代有文身，所以我们的研究对象中肯定有处于职业生涯早期的人。
What’s next in the field of tattoo research?
We plan to use eye-movement tracking technology to see how people respond to photos of visible and offensive tattoos. But honestly, I feel that if our findings can be replicated with different samples, researchers should spend less time studying tattoos as they relate to employment and earnings. We should study other potentially stigmatized groups and try to correct real, not just perceived, biases.
文身研究的下一步会是什么？
我们打算给实验参与者看可见文身和冒犯性文身的照片，并用视线追踪技术来观察他们的反应。不过说实在的，如果我们的发现可以被其他样本组验证，研究者应该少花点时间考察文身和聘用及收入的关系。我们应该去研究其他可能被污名化的群体，并尝试去纠正真实存在的偏见，而非想象中存在的偏见。
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发表于 2018-12-16 13:28:44