Economic Predictors of Plastic Surgery Expenditures: A 14-Year Analysis of Unemployment, Disposable Income, and Stock Indices.

Macroeconomic conditions significantly affect consumer spending patterns, including aesthetic surgery expenditures. This study examines the longitudinal relationship between unemployment rates, disposable income, stock indices, and aesthetic surgery spending from 2006 to 2019. Data on aesthetic surgery expenditures were collected from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, whereas unemployment data were obtained from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, disposable income from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, and stock indices from the Federal Reserve Economic Data. Time series correlational analyses and Granger causality tests were used to explore these relationships. Unemployment was inversely related to total aesthetic surgery expenditures and most individual procedures. However, Granger causality tests did not reveal a significant predictive relationship between unemployment and aesthetic procedure spending for most procedures. Disposable income was most strongly associated with expenditures on injection procedures and had nonsignificant relationships with more invasive procedures, including breast augmentation, liposuction, abdominoplasty, and blepharoplasty. The analysis demonstrated a significant positive relationship between the NASDAQ, S&P 500, and Dow Jones with all aesthetic procedures, except rhinoplasty. Granger causality tests revealed significant predictive relationships for several procedures at different lags using disposable income and stock indices as predictive variables. These findings highlight a nuanced relationship between macroeconomic conditions and consumer spending on aesthetic surgery. Overall, this paper provides new insights offering a foundation for further investigation into aesthetic plastic surgery consumption on an individual level, rather than on an aggregate. Level of Evidence 5: (Risk).