Journal Article
Explaining personality pay gaps in the UK
Authors
Publication date
Sep 2014
Summary
Using the British Household Panel Survey we estimate the effect on pay
of each of the Big Five personality traits for employed men living in
the UK. We add to the existing literature by estimating the role of
factors such as education and occupation in explaining personality pay
gaps, by allowing the personality traits to affect wage differently
across occupations, education levels and other workers characteristics,
and by investigating personality pay gaps for high- and low-paid
workers. We find that openness to experience is the most relevant
personality trait in explaining wages, followed by neuroticism,
agreeableness, extroversion and conscientiousness. Openness and
extroversion are rewarded while agreeableness and neuroticism are
penalized, but the openness pay gap is totally explained by differences
in worker characteristics, particularly education and occupation.
Published in
Applied Economics
Volume and page numbers
46 , 3131 -3150
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00036846.2014.922670
ISSN
16
Subjects
Psychology and Wages And Earnings
Notes
Open Access article
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