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Sorting in the Labor Market: Do Gregarious Workers Flock to Interactive Jobs?

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Author Info
Alan B. Krueger
David Schkade

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Abstract

This paper tests a central implication of the theory of equalizing differences, that workers sort into jobs with different attributes based on their preferences for those attributes. We present evidence from four new time-use data sets for the United States and France on whether workers who are more gregarious, as revealed by their behavior when they are not working, tend to be employed in jobs that involve more social interactions. In each data set we find a significant and sizable relationship between the tendency to interact with others off the job and while working. People's descriptions of their jobs and their personalities also accord reasonably well with their time use on and off the job. Furthermore, workers in occupations that require social interactions according to the O'Net Dictionary of Occupational Titles tend to spend more of their non-working time with friends. Lastly, we find that workers report substantially higher levels of job satisfaction and net affect while at work if their jobs entail frequent interactions with coworkers and other desirable working conditions.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 13032.

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Date of creation: Apr 2007
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13032

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J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Alan B. Krueger & David A. Schkade, 2007. "The Reliability of Subjective Well-Being Measures," IZA Discussion Papers 2724, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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  2. Henry Saffer, 2005. "The Demand for Social Interaction," NBER Working Papers 11881, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. John F. Heliwell & Haifang Huang, 2005. "How's the Job? Well-Being and Social Capital in the Workplace," NBER Working Papers 11759, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Freeman, Richard B, 1978. "Job Satisfaction as an Economic Variable," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 135-41, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Brown, Charles, 1980. "Equalizing Differences in the Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 113-34, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Charles Brown, 1980. "Equalizing Differences in the Labor Market," NBER Reprints 0103, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. W. Kip Viscusi & Joni Hersch, 2001. "Cigarette Smokers As Job Risk Takers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 269-280, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1990. "Shirking or productive schmoozing: Wages and the allocation of time at work," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 43(3), pages 121-133, February.
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  1. Antonio Cabrales & Raffaele Miniaci & Marco Piovesan & Giovanni Ponti, 2008. "Social Preferences and Strategic Uncertainty: An Experiment on Markets and Contracts," Discussion Papers 08-06, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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