An academic who identified the key professional attribute to success tells Celia Walden why appearances are so important.

We think of “capital” as something you save up for a rainy day; something inert and intangible, which, invested in the right way, can wield enormous power. There is nothing erotic about “capital” – or rather, there wasn’t until this month, when a doctor of sociology at the London School of Economics identified “erotic capital” as being the key professional attribute of our times.

According to Dr Catherine Hakim’s controversial article in the European Sociological Review, this “beauty premium” can have as big an impact on your career as your educational qualifications or background – particularly in the private sector and service industries. Those possessing “erotic capital” can expect to earn 10-15 per cent more than those without it.

Obvious? Not necessarily. It is an elusive commodity, ownership of which is not defined by gender, age or conventional physical beauty. And the best news? If you’re not born with it, you can learn to have the EC factor.

“Nowhere except in our puritanical, Anglo-Saxon culture do people see looking good as superficial,” says the well-turned-out professor. “In Britain, beauty is deemed naturally worthless, and therefore one can denigrate it, but elsewhere people are open about enjoying looking at attractive men and women.” Christianity, she explains, which has traditionally always been anti-sexuality, anti-beauty and anti-pleasure, is only partly responsible. Sigue leyendo →